We stand together (or not at all)
by Dark K. Sly
Summary: It's so easy to hate this man, so painfully easy. He's the embodiment of rich, white male privilege. And yet, here he is, building the guy who killed his parents an arm, without having been asked, just so he can correct the mistakes all of them made. She watches him go and sighs, small and tired, before texting a single line to Steve. Get ready to come home.


Stony_SteveHate

Tony has a solution almost as soon as he's made aware that there is a problem, as he is prone to do.

Natasha knows it, of course, which is why she mentioned the problem to him in the first place, but she also doesn't expect anything from him.

She knows him well enough to realize there is a good chance he'll choose to do nothing about it, and she respects it. For all that Natasha plays it off as if she despises him, she _knows_ what he's been through, especially these past few months.

She knows.

She knows he's been fighting to hammer out the Accords to something Steve can live with. She knows he's doing his best to undermine Ross's power in the government, and she knows he's been working with Fury to reshape SHIELD into something they can trust again. She knows all of this, and she knows he's been doing it all with very little help from anyone, because somehow he ended up looking like a villain in this whole story, and not even Natasha understands _why_.

So when she tells him that yes, she's been in contact with Steve and all the others, that they are fine and ready to get back to their lives when the government pardons them, she knows he'll accept that as a win.

When she tells him James Barnes wouldn't be returning because he _chose_ to go under again for not being able to trust his own mind, she does it in the most detached, professional tone she can muster, because she doesn't want him to think he's been pressured into anything.

He stares at her, big brown eyes sad and so very tired, and huffs a small laugh, not quite bitter, but getting there.

"You think I could help him," he tells her, voice free of judgment, but even after all these months, even after she chose _his side_ , he still thinks she doesn't value him as a leader, as a team member, as a friend – at least not as much as she values Steve.

"I think it's your call," she answers, voice calm and steady, "I think everyone would understand it if you didn't try."

He smirks at her, shaking his head in the process and turning his back to walk away towards his workshop — she thinks that is it when she hears his voice again.

"I already have 78% of his new arm ready, Romanoff."

Natasha swallows dryly at that, her chest constricting in a strange way because it's so easy to hate this man, so painfully easy. He's the embodiment of rich, white male privilege. He's irritatingly arrogant, and he doesn't always think before acting, and even when he does, he manages to twist his logic around and shape it into something that will always benefit him, and yet, here he is, building the guy who killed his parents an arm, without having been asked; working his way through diplomacy and politics, even though he hates it with every fiber of his being, just so he can correct the mistakes _all of them_ made.

She watches him go and sighs, small and tired, before texting a single line to Steve.

 _Get ready to come home_.

 **X**

Steve stands on a landing strip, supervising as his best friend is being unloaded like a piece of cargo back into the States.

He's not sure about this, but he'll take anything over the not knowing, and the feeling guilty, and the not being able to come home.

The others are already back at the compound — he doesn't particularly want to know how their reunion with Tony will be like, because he doesn't know how to feel about any of it. On the one hand, the man was responsible for getting them arrested. On the other, and Steve _does_ see that, clearly, now that he isn't high on adrenaline and powered by self-righteousness, if Bucky hadn't been involved in all of this, if he didn't think his best friend's life was at stake, he would have behaved differently.

He would have talked things through, he would have made Tony see the problems in the Accords, he would have been more reasonable than he had been, and they would have come out of it maybe not unscathed, but certainly not in the broken shape they are in now.

Months later, and here he is — the Accords changed, SHIELD back in power with Fury at its head, and the Avengers responding to it, instead of the government alone.

And Tony had had to accomplish all of it pretty much on his own.

Nat had told him most of it through their talks and messages, and none of it helped to make him feel less guilty — he doesn't know how to deal with things, and it's worrying.

For all his talk that he wanted to be an independent organization with the Avengers, now he sees that maybe he's better off being a soldier, because when it comes to choices, he makes poor ones based on sentiment alone, not always thinking things through.

Rhodey is watching him as he watches the cryo chamber being loaded into a van. The man was never really close to him — the both of them had always navigated together because they were Tony's friends, not really friends with each other. The weight of his judgment can be felt from afar, though, and Steve knows he deserves it.

"You shouldn't talk to him until you're ready to apologize," the Colonel tells him when they finally embark on the van that will take them back to the compound. Rhodes's voice is tight with anger, and Steve looks down, not able to look at him in the eye, his gaze falling onto the braces he's wearing on his legs, knowing he is, even if indirectly, the cause of it, "And I'm not saying apologize for the crap you pulled with the Accords, because the two of you were idiots, and we all know it."

Steve nods.

He knows he has to apologize for knowing Bucky killed Tony's parents and not saying anything. For not trusting him with this information before Tony was put in a position to _defend_ the man who killed his mother and his father. For lying to him by omission when he _knows_ how much the loss of Howard and Maria shaped the broken man Tony is today.

The Accords, their war, their imprisonment, their fights – that is on both of them. That is on them being stupid and immature, and arrogant, above anything else. But that broken look in Tony's eyes, that raw pain in his voice: that is on _Steve_.

He has no idea how to fix it.

 **X**

They don't really talk.

It's not hard, considering the size of the compound they live in, but it irks him, because everyone _else_ does, on both sides.

Clint forgives Tony when he realizes that his family is safer than ever — they were safe even before he had hit the airport for the stupid fight that got him into jail. It takes him some guts to talk to Tony, and it takes Tony all of two seconds to say he knows he was wrong too, and could they move past this already, and that was that. Sam, strangely, had already forgiven Tony when he told him where to go to help Steve and Bucky, even before their fight. It doesn't take much to convince Scott to forgive him too, even though he still has quips about trusting a Stark from time to time. Wanda takes a little longer, but not so much because she feels that Tony doesn't deserve forgiveness, but more because she doesn't know how to apologize to Vision. Steve is aware that she and Tony talked things over at some point, and that Vision understood her position. He also knows, because Wanda made a point of telling him, that her release and authorization to come back to US soil was even more troublesome than Bucky's, because he, at the very least, had the excuse of being brainwashed, and once Tony managed to get Ross out of the picture, it wasn't really a difficult sell, just a complicated one. She, however, had been a volunteer for Hydra, a killer for not minding her powers, and a traitor to her friends for leaving, even though Tony recognized he was mistaken in trying to keep her restrained.

Their talks, their reconciling, every single thing is made right by the fact that they _know_ they made mistakes, and Tony _knows_ he did it too, and they apologize, and they promise to be better and try harder. Everything turns out okay among the others, though, and all that's left is the two of them.

They co-exist well enough, and throughout Tony's explanation of what he'll do to help Bucky with Binarily Augmented Retro Framing, they don't snap at each other once.

There is no teasing, no sarcasm, no quips about his age or physical form, no jokes about his girlfriend or his uniform. Just cold, hard professionalism, and it kills him a little inside that he lost someone he cared so much about so completely.

They run the program, and Tony makes it work while Bucky is still under — Steve is nervous and tense, but he tries his best not to show it, lest he offend Tony. The team is gathered around the glass circling Tony's workshop, and Vision is in there with him, helping out with whatever is needed.

When they leave, hours of work behind them, Tony doesn't even look at him beyond explaining what is going to happen in the next couple of days. How the program is going to hijack Bucky's mind, finding his triggers and essentially neutralizing them, healing this part of his fractured mind enough that he'll be able to work as a functional human being again, in theory with no risk of being turn back into the Winter Soldier by a couple of words.

It takes some time — days, really, but finally, Tony says it should be safe to take Barnes out of the freezer (his words, not Steve's) and test it out.

Again, the team gathers around the workshop, and Tony doesn't allow anyone else in, just him and Bucky. It makes Steve incredibly nervous, but Tony wouldn't do anything to harm them _now_. He wouldn't go through all the trouble he did to bring them back just so he could exact petty revenge on someone who's been controlled for almost a century.

When the cryo chamber is opened and he awakes, Bucky blinks twice, looking around himself, scared and tense, and looking so very helpless with his arm off, white t-shirt and pants, hair even longer than it was when he went under.

He has no weapons beyond a training that may be damaged by the removal of his programing. His first steps are unsure, but Steve smiles, maybe for the first time in weeks, and receives a weak attempt at a smile in response when Bucky sees him through the glass.

They are still staring at each other when Tony's voice make Steve move — in a second, however, Sam is right beside him, holding him back, and Natasha's hand is on his arm, her voice in his ear telling him to calm down, and all Steve can do is watch as the man who had his parents killed by his best friend reads words from a list.

" _Желание_ ," he says, walking slowly towards Bucky, who can only blink back, eyes wide and scared, and Steve wants to shout, yell, and break them apart, but he doesn't, because he may screw this up too, and he can't.

" _Ржавый_."

He knows they would have to test him, he just wishes it wouldn't be like this. So soon, so raw still.

" _Семнадцать_ , _рассвет_ , _печь_ ," Tony's accent is good enough that Steve knows Natasha must have helped him with it. She must have known what Tony was going to pull off before anyone else did, and Steve wants to feel betrayed, but he feels that he can't, not really.

" _Девять_ , _добросердечный, возвращениенародину,"_ Bucky's breathing is hard, and he looks _terrified_ , but his eyes are focused and firm, and Steve allows himself to hope, even if just the tiniest bit.

" _Один,"_ Tony says, stopping right in front of Bucky and swallowing dryly, looking at the words in the piece of paper in his hand one last time before finishing, " _Грузовойвагон."_

For a second, it's like no one dares breathe. And then slowly, so very, very slowly, Bucky reaches out his only hand, holds a piece of the paper that is in Tony's hand and _pulls_ , right down the middle. Tony doesn't let his half go until is torn in two, and then the two of them open their fingers, and the list falls to ground.

They stare at each other for a moment, and fear starts gripping at his heart again, until James Barnes _smirks_ at Tony Stark, his eyes glinting in the workshop, as Tony answers in kind with a scoff.

"You're an asshole," Bucky tells him quietly, and Tony winks at him, turning his back to the murderer of his parents purposefully, leaving himself open to an attack, because he _knows_ it won't come.

"Talk nice to me, or you'll be armless forever, Jon Snow."

Tony disappears upstairs before Steve can thank him, or even talk to him, and he isn't brave enough to go after the man.

He stays by Bucky, who looks once again unsure when he sees all those people staring at him, and he does his best to keep his head about him.

It's not easy, but he does his best.

 **X**

Strangely enough, Bucky only actively seeks out one person's company, and that is Tony's.

At first, Steve is worried that is something left from the list of words Tony read, until Natasha realizes what he is thinking and slaps him on the head.

"You are so much more stupid than I thought," she tells him softly, and when he continues to look confused, she sighs, and crosses her legs slowly, pondering something.

"You are aware that Tony created that machine for _himself_? Because of his issues with his dad?" Steve nods, not because he actually knew this, but because it sounds like something sensible to do. It sounds like something _Tony_ would do – to seek out help from technology instead of looking for a therapist, like a normal person would, "You are also aware that Tony _has_ forgiven Barnes for whatever crap the Winter Soldier pulled?" Again, Steve nods because he thinks Tony _must have_ , or he wouldn't allow Bucky to follow him around in silence, or stay in his workshop, music blaring in their ears, as Tony works on a new arm for him, "Now, what I need you to understand is that Tony had to work through a lot of personal crap in the past few months, but most of all, Barnes made him _need_ to work on _his_ personal crap. He wanted you back here, Steve, and he knew that to have that, he would need to have Barnes too, and he couldn't bring himself to try and live with a guy he couldn't trust in what is essentially his home. The personal things he had to process and think over are his own to share, but I want you to think on this: Barnes feels comfortable around Tony for a reason. It's the same reason Tony feels comfortable around him too. As the Winter Soldier, Barnes used his own skills, his own powers, to take down _a lot_ of people, and that is his responsibility, even if it's not his fault. Do you know who else killed a lot of people through his own set of skills, even though the guns going to the terrorists weren't his fault? Do you know of anyone else who had to accept that he had caused a lot of damage, a lot of pain, who had to understand that yes, he was responsible, but that doesn't mean the blame is his alone? Because I do."

He's quiet after that, trying to process the words Nat has told him, and she gets up, sighing as she stares at him.

"To forgive Barnes, Tony had to forgive himself, and there's nothing in the world that is bigger than that. Don't worry about them, Steve, they are just fine."

She leaves, and Steve stays, staring at the floor, his mind a storm of thoughts.

They _are_ fine.

What about him?

 **X**

They watch TV a lot, Steve finds out one day. He mostly trains, and keeps to what he starts to consider _his_ side of the compound – he hopes the division wasn't so clear to him, but it is: everyone else comes and goes, but Tony keeps to his side, and Steve to the other. There is, of course, common ground: the kitchens, the living room and the TV room, with its large screen, video game consoles and comfortable armchairs are everyone's favorites, but he and Tony set up a rule to never be together in them almost non-intentionally.

It's just after a really heavy night with nightmares and trouble sleeping that he decides to wander around the compound that he finds Tony, Bucky and Scott watching TV – it's a TV show, not a movie, and they are softly talking about plot points and things they like best, and who they think is going to end up ruling the Seven Kingdoms with a propriety that speaks of comfortable companionship: this is something the three of them must have been doing for a long time, not just tonight – watching this particular show together for some reason, in the middle of the night.

He leaves before they notice him, and finds Wanda in the kitchen, staring at him from behind a mug filled with tea, disheveled hair speaking of a long sleepless night.

"They watch a couple of episodes every night," she tells Steve in her accented voice, taking a sip of her tea before going on, giving Steve time to back out of the conversation if he wants to, "Scott likes the dragons, and Tony likes the naked people."

Steve sits at the table too, holding onto a bottle of water, and smiles ruefully down.

"What about Bucky?"

Wanda shrugs softly.

"I think he likes the company."

Steve looks up at that, thinking of all the times he's sought out Bucky's company in the past few weeks and couldn't get it, because he was already somewhere else.

"I didn't abandon him," he starts, his tone much more defensive than he would have liked, and Wanda tilts her head to the side a bit, as calm as she can ever be.

"I didn't think you had. But you still see him as your best friend from your childhood, and the Army, and the War, and he is not that person anymore. Scott accepts him because he knows little of him – he had his own problems to deal with before coming back to team, so he's impartial."

"And Tony?"

Wanda sighs before answering, something sad and tired, and yet exasperated in it.

"Tony accepts him," she starts, watching Steve for his reactions, and right now he is reminded that this is the Tony is the man who was first accepted Bruce too, before anyone else. Tony was the one person who looked at Banner and thought _Brilliant!_ before thinking _Monster!_ and Steve had never really fully realized this until now, watching Wanda tell him of acceptance. "Tony accepts damaged people, Steve. He doesn't try to fix them, or change them — he just takes them as they are. We have a bet, Scott and I, that if Loki ever changes sides, Tony will be the first to befriend him, because as hard as he is on himself, if anyone at all can come up with a rational explanation for what they have done to him, he'll forgive them. And he'll accept them as they come, damaged, or crazy, or raging – and he'll protect them even from themselves, even when they don't want him to, even if it makes us hate him," she says with a small smile, "That is who he is. And that is why Bucky feels he can be _by_ Tony right now, _beside_ him, and _behind_ him. And maybe this is what he needs right now."

"I—" he starts, and then stops. He what? He accepts Bucky for who he is now, even though he has no idea who that person could be? He would do the same if given a chance? Can he really say that, if he doesn't know for sure that he could?

"Give them time," Wanda says softly, carefully, a touch of wariness in her eyes, "And if I may give you a piece of advice?" she asks, and waits until Steve is looking up at her, and nodding, "Talk to Tony. He is not going to seek you out, but the two of you _need_ to find some balance. I don't like to be the pessimist, but if something big _does_ come our way and we're like _this_ , we're not going to be avenging anything at all."

Steve looks down, frowning. He thinks of saying that Tony hurt him too, and why should _he_ go after him, but it sounds childish even to his own ears, and he can't bring himself to go there.

"Everyone else seems to be doing okay," he says quietly, and Wanda tilts her head a bit, conceding the point.

"We do. But when we're in battle, when we're fighting not only for our lives, but for everyone else on this planet, we can't have our two leaders at odds, because we'll fall apart, and that was the whole problem before," she pauses again, sighs heavily, as if she doesn't want to go where she is going, but marches on because she must, "I was told someone once said you weren't a team, you were a ticking time bomb. We are not a team _now_ ," she stresses with a frown, "but we could be."

Wanda leaves, and Steve sits in the kitchen until he starts hearing people getting up and heading his way in search for breakfast.

Sleep doesn't come until late, and even then, he barely rests.

He doesn't know how to do what he has to do.

 **X**

A series of events gets him moving, even though he can't see how when it starts — it starts with Tony walking into the kitchen one night, right around dinner time, waving papers in the air and decidedly ignoring Steve as he talks with a smirk on his face, dropping all the paperwork in front of Bucky, who can only stare up from his plate of mac'n'cheese as Tony talks.

"So, I pulled some strings, and I did some legwork, and right here, in front of you, is the path for you to finally pull your weight around the compound, Elsa," he tells Bucky, but everyone in there hears it. Wanda, Rhodey and Vision are not present, but all the others are, and they stare as Bucky picks the documents up and frowns, confused and a little afraid. His new arm — Tony's creation from start to finish, vibranium donated by T'Challa, red star painted the same red as Tony's suits — glints in the kitchen artificial lights as he reads.

"You want me to be an Avenger?" Bucky says, voice disbelieving, excited and afraid all at once. His hands are shaking, and his eyes are filled with tears, and Tony frowns.

"Only if you want to," the man shrugs casually, as if he hadn't just given Bucky the biggest proof of trust anyone could ever give him, "It wasn't that hard to convince Fury, really, and he did tell me that if this goes to shit my ass is on the line, but I did put my ass on the line for people who deserved it a lot less than you do, so," Steve winces at the small jab, but keeps his focus on Bucky, just like everyone else, "You want in in our little boy band?"

Steve can see Bucky swallowing dry.

"How come it's a boy band with Natasha and Wanda in it?" he asks, voice hoarse.

"It's a boy band, Barnes. Just deal with it," Tony replies, staring directly into Bucky's eyes, "You in?"

There's a second of silence when Steve can swear no one dares breath, and then Bucky closes his eyes and nods tightly, only once.

Everyone accepts that and moves on, but Tony smiles brilliantly, and Bucky flashes the man a grin that has more emotion than Steve has seen from him since 1944.

That's the first event.

The second is their first mission after Bucky is officially in the team. Fury asks Steve, Tony, Bucky, Natasha and Clint into it because it's not a major battle. Strange had somehow opened something he shouldn't have, and they just have to deal with the fallout until the man closes whatever magic he pulled, and that's it. They don't need too much power, but they need people with a level head to deal with it, and Steve knows, just as everyone else does, that it's a test for Bucky.

They do fine. He had aways fought well with everyone in the team — they would practice for hours on end before Ultron, and after that it just became second nature to keep doing it until they could guess each other's moves just as well as their own. He thinks he'll have an easy time fighting alongside Bucky again, because they used to do this all the time back then, but Bucky sticks to fighting with Tony, who won't go near Steve for anything, and Natasha, who adjusts to his fighting style with ease.

There's very little chatter at first — Nat was never one to blab as she fought, and Clint quips from time to time, but doesn't really engage. Tony could talk the whole fight through, but right now he's quiet as a mouse, the only sound coming from him are information Friday gets to him, and he relays it to them until they are at it for at least forty minutes.

"Stark, are you going to stop trying to get yourself killed by the lame excuse of enemy we're fighting here or do I have to kick your ass too?" Bucky asks, and, for Steve, it's completely out of the blue, but then again, he was trying very hard not to pay attention to Tony.

"He fights like that all the time, Barnes. It's his thing," Natasha points out, as she takes out one of the ice things they're facing with a couple of shots.

"Yeah, did he ever tell you about the time he flew a nuke into a wormhole? You're not an official Avenger until you heard that fifteen times _at least_ ," Clint points out, a smirk clear in his voice.

"Hey!" Tony protests, the sound of his repulsor clear in the background, "I was very brave that day. It was brave, and heroic, and I saved New York."

Steve hears Bucky huffing, and he can't stop the fond smile that grows on his face, even as he bashes one of the ice things into snowflakes with his shield.

"I find that hard to believe if you're just letting these ice cubes get that close to you every time. It's just ice," Bucky says, and Steve finally pays attention to Tony's fighting in between his own moves, and he does notice that Tony's responses seem almost sluggish, slower than usual, the ice things coming closer and closer every time.

"I think the magic is interfering with Friday," Tony says, after a loaded pause, "I can't get a read on the things, I'm shooting what I can see," he explains, and Steve freezes — they've been out here for at least an hour, and Tony has been fighting pretty much blindly for all that time, not asking for help even once.

If Bucky hadn't called him on it, he would have kept it up too.

The ice things are just that — ice. They don't even have a determined shape, just clumps of ice raging at them, freezing everything in their path if they touch it for longer than a couple of seconds. Steve isn't sure what to do just then — protect Tony, and risk offending him, or ask him to leave it up to them, _definitely_ offending him. As he frets, Bucky solves the issue with a quietly cursed ' _Damn punk'_ and a leap to stand in front of Tony as the man hovers downward. Bucky shields him from the worst of the ice, calling the position of the things deliberately, and Tony shoots cleanly. Soon, they're taking out more than Steve, Clint and Natasha combined, and chatter starts up again, with Clint inciting a count for most ice things destroyed, and claiming they'd have to divvy up the tally between Bucky and Tony, because they weren't playing doubles.

It takes Strange other forty minutes to close the portal, another hour for them to get home, and about fifteen minutes into a shower for Steve to realize _he_ was the only one left out today.

Now that he thinks on it, it's not that the compound is divided, it's that _he_ avoids everyone else when they're around Tony, and now, after days and days trying to ignore it, he understands what Bruce said.

He needs to be the one to seek Tony out because he's the one shutting everyone out.

And he needs to do it soon.

 **X**

Soon comes that very night, because he's restless and can't sleep, and it's three forty in the morning, and he can't just lie in bed anymore, so he heads to the kitchen — where Tony is making coffee.

Tony eyes him as if he's an unknown entity, and Steve hovers by the door before sighing, and getting himself some water, and sitting on a stool by the counter, watching carefully as Tony stares at the coffeemaker, as if willing it to work faster.

"You and Bucky seem to be getting along," he ends up saying, and Tony startles for a second, before turning scared eyes to him — he never thought he'd see Tony being scared of him, but there you go.

"I'm not stealing him away from you," Tony says defensively, and Steve frowns.

"I never thought you were, I was just… You two do seem to be getting along. It's good, I think. For the team," he finishes lamely, and Tony goes back to staring at the coffeemaker, "It was great of you to arrange it with Fury for him to join the team," he tries again, and he can see Tony is getting angry, because he shakes his head before answering.

"I didn't do that for you."

"I didn't say you did," he points out, and Tony finally turns to stare at him. He leans against the sink, arms crossed in front of his chest.

"I have to make that quite clear, because, see, here's the thing: if I start seeing you and Barnes as a _unit_? I might start taking it out on him, and I won't do that, because I _am_ better than that. Barnes is Barnes. He's his own person, he has his own past, and his own mind. My relationship with him has nothing to do with you, for good or bad. So you don't get to compliment me on our getting along, or thank me for getting him in the team — none of that has anything to do with you."

The coffeemaker finally beeps, and Tony turns, getting a mug and pouring coffee in determinately, before striding out of the kitchen.

"Why can't you forgive _me_?" he blurts out without really meaning too, but suddenly he realizes this is what's been bothering him, this is what he wants to know, "Why not me, if you forgave everyone else?"

Tony stops. He's right at the door, and by the tension on his back, Steve can guess he's trying to decide what would do less damage — or maybe _more_ damage: to go back and have this conversation or to just walk away.

"Did you apologize?" he asks, turning around very slowly, mug clutched in his hand so tightly his skin is colorless.

"I wrote you a letter. I—"

Tony scoffs, and Steve cuts himself off.

"You didn't apologize either," he points out, and Tony straightens his eyes, anger flashing in them, making him set the mug on the counter as he walks back into the kitchen.

"I didn't. Do you want to know why?" he pauses, his face so close Steve can feels his breathing, "When I created Ultron, it was based on the fear Wand inspired in my head. She allowed me to feel it, and then she played it as if she hadn't done anything more than send a couple of illusions our way, but she _knows_ she did more. Did you know this was the first thing she confessed to me when she got back? That her responsibility in what happened with Ultron was the same as mine, or Bruce's. Did you know that when I was under her spell, it was _you_ asking me why I hadn't done more to protect you all that spurred me into motion, because I couldn't bear the thought of letting _you,_ Steve Rogers, down," he pauses, takes a step back, "She apologized. So did I. I explained the kind of pressures the government were putting on us, and she recognized what she did wrong, and we both learned from it, and we were able to let it go." Tony takes a deep breath, not so much angry right now, as he just seems _tired_ , "Did you know that Laura filed for a divorce? She was kind enough not to exclude Clint from having visitation rights, but she moved to an unknown location, because she doesn't want her kids in this mess — it took Clint getting out of retirement for her to realize he's _never_ going to retire. Pepper's been helping her out, because they both know _well_ from not retiring men. Clint was angry, he was _so_ angry, but he owned his choice, he owned what he did, and we moved from it, because we both saw how badly we screwed that up. Sam forgave me when I went after you trying to help you. He was honest with me, open. Scott didn't really have a beef with me, so we're cool, but even we talked, did you know that? We all did. But you didn't."

"You didn't either," he tells him again, and Tony nods.

"I didn't want to."

"Why not?"

"Because I knew I would forgive any of them anything. They were following you, and I am man enough to own the fact that I get that. I would follow you too if the choice was between you or me, but back then, back with the Accords, you were so gone in your own crap that you couldn't see that, together, we could have made it so much easier for us, so for once I thought, I'm going to do the right thing. I am," he pauses again, shakes his head with a rueful smile on his lips, and looks into Steve's eyes, "Then someone said _Bucky_ , and everything you believed in went to hell."

"It wasn't Bucky's fault." He starts to defend, and Tony actually scoffs.

"I know it wasn't. It was yours. You were in the same frame of mind ever since that crap you pulled with SHIELD in Washington. You hear the word _Bucky_ and you go insane, you lose every rational bone in your body, and don't even try to deny it, because when we were after the Hydra bases, you were having Sam run your errands for you, and I didn't interfere — not even once — even though I _knew_ , because it was something you needed to do. But you put him in front of your team. You put him in front of _everyone_."

"I was trying to protect him. In Siberia, I was—"

"You were, I know that. But you know what would have happened if you had told me about my parents? I would have had more than five seconds to process that information. I wouldn't have been made aware of it after having been betrayed by the guy who was not only my _friend_ , but my leader. Someone I thought was so much _better_ than me that I felt like lashing out every time you spoke, just so I wouldn't have to try to measure up. I would have worked through it, and I would have, given enough time, processed that it wasn't him. But you didn't trust me."

Steve can see that Tony's eyes are full of tears by then, and he doesn't know what to do.

"Not only that, but you chose to defend him above me, and everyone who stayed behind — even the people who fought on your side. We could have made this so much easier. We could have brought him in again, to the compound if we had to. We could have gone and wiped out those soldiers with our team. We could have fixed the Accords together, instead of me doing it all by myself because none of the people who should be fighting by my side were here. You heard _Bucky_ and everyone else became a blur to you, and that's why I didn't seek you out," he shrugs, visibly forcing himself to calm down, and picks up his mug again, taking a sip, "I don't trust you. I don't know if I ever will again. So no, I didn't apologize, even though I know half of that shit is on me, because it wouldn't be real, it wouldn't be true. I can apologize for all the wrongs I did to all the people who fought with you, but _you_ — you did so much worse to me, that I don't know how to deal."

When he stops talking, his hands are shaking, and he looks _wrecked_.

Steve stares, because he wants to do something, he wants to _help_ , and he has no idea how.

Tony leaves, and the kitchen is suddenly much colder than it was before they had this chat.

 **X**

His relationship with Sharon doesn't really go up in flames — it just kind of dies down and turns to ash very slowly but surely for the months following the break in the team.

It's not that he doesn't like her, because he does — but he _likes_ her. There is nothing much in there, and compared to everything else he feels nowadays, he thinks it's too little. Not surprisingly, so does she.

She's a level headed woman, secure and mature in a way that he can only hope to be one day, so when she tells him they aren't together anymore — when she actually makes him see they never really _were_ together — he gets sad because it's one more thing in his life that he let go to hell and didn't even notice until it was too late.

Maybe all he's good for is fighting, because all the rest of it has gone to shit.

Her coming to the compound didn't even have anything to do with him — she had come by to talk some things through with Tony on behalf of SHIELD, which had hired her back once Fury officially returned. Tony is their official liaison with them, and he makes most of their political calls nowadays, with some help from Hill and Natasha. Tony doesn't order them around, he doesn't really do the whole _leader_ thing, but everyone knows that he's the one calling the shots and, strangely, this is the first time that he doesn't remarks on it. When Steve was their leader, there were always quips about him building them their weapons, and improving their uniforms, and why would no one recognize the work he's put into it, but now that he's actually the one responsible for them, not a word.

Tony has, strangely enough, matured.

Looking at his own life and choices, Steve wishes he could say the same about himself.

He's sitting on the roof, eying the horizon with a beer in his hand just for the hell of it, since he can't get drunk, when he hears someone approaching. He's surprised when he sees it's Bucky.

The man sits by his side, drops a six pack behind them, and takes a bottle for himself, lending him support silently.

"I thought you were avoiding me," he points out, because it's what it looks like — as if Bucky doesn't want to be around him.

"Once you don't look like someone killed your puppy anymore, I'll tell you why," his friend replies, without denying it, which, Steve has to admit, hurts, but at least it's not a lie.

"How did you know?"

"Sharon told Tony, who told me. Friday told us you were here."

He nods but doesn't say anything, because he doesn't know what to say. Everything he does seems to make everything worse, and he thinks that maybe it's about time he stops trying.

"You do know that Clint and Laura split up?" Bucky asks him, and Steve nods, taking another sip of his beer, "And Pepper left once she realized Tony wouldn't stop with the suits. Banner's disappeared, but I don't think they'll get back to whatever they had before he vanished even if he did come back. I'm not sure what's up with Scott and Pym's daughter, but she didn't exactly congratulate him for getting arrested again and then joining the Avengers."

Steve frowns, and turns to look at Bucky in incredulity.

"Why the hell are you telling me this?"

Bucky cracks a small smile.

"To tell you that relationships come and go, and it's not the end of the world."

Steve keeps quiet for a few seconds, and then shakes his head before staring at Bucky with a serious look on his face.

"Why have you been avoiding me?"

There's a long, heavy sigh, and Bucky looks down at the grass before speaking, his voice calm and paused, as if working his way through an explanation as much for his own benefit as Steve's.

"Tony is an asshole, did you know that?" Steve scoffs at that, and Bucky goes on, "After the deprogramming, my brain was… settled. I hadn't felt like that ever since before I was taken by Hydra the first time, before you were Captain America, before you rescued me. Zola had already begun experimenting back then, and my head was weird, but it was the war, and I assumed everyone was feeling out of sorts. If a cut healed faster, if I could run longer, jump higher, who was I to complain, when we were in battle everyday, right?" He takes another sip of his beer before talking again, "So I come to, the first time in decades with a normal mind. No programming, no torture. My memories from Hydra still here, not erased, but… _muted_. As if they had happened to someone else, and I could separate what was me from what was _them_ , and I was good for the first time _ever_. That machine is incredible," he smiles sadly, facing Steve, his eyes so very sad, and so very old, "But it's not a miracle. It didn't heal me magically, it didn't make me forget all the shit I pulled, and it didn't make me feel any less of an asshole after Washington, after Berlin, after Siberia. So I sought Tony out, because Tony is an asshole. He wouldn't be careful with me, I had no right to ask him to. He would tell me things straight, no feeling sorry for my past, no coddling me, because he had every right to do that — and he did. He can't keep quiet to save his life, unless _you're_ around, apparently, and he would talk to me normally, which no one else would do. It's easy, being around Tony, because he went through something similar, he needed to process things too, just as I did, and he knows he pulled a lot of crap he needs to rectify and own up to, and he gets that. He fucked things up too, you know, he's… broken. Like me. A little less, maybe, but he is."

"Still not clear on why you've been avoiding me."

"It's hard to be around good people when you're not sure you're so good yourself."

"I've made mistakes too, Buck."

"Yeah, you did. And you're so broken up about it, you're wasting away instead of picking yourself up."

"I'm not—" he tries to say.

"Yeah, you are!" Bucky interrupts, for the first time with anger in his voice, "You screwed up, royally, yeah, but _once_ , and you're behaving as if the world is going to end. As if you're not good enough to be on this team anymore. What does that tell you about what you must think of the rest of us, then? Nat, who was an assassin, and Clint, who did all that shit when Loki fucked him up? Scott, who was a burglar? Even Wanda, knowing, as she knows, how much damage she's caused?" he pauses for a second, and his voice is quieter, almost a whisper, but so very hurt, Steve almost flinches from it, "Tony, who you actually fought against? Me, the monster Hydra created? How do you think that you acting as if you are the most terrible person in the world makes all of us feel? How do you think we imagine you see _us_ , if that's how you see yourself?"

"I don't—"

"We know that. We kind of know that, but it's hard to not keep that thought in the back of our minds every time you mope around. You pulled away from all the others. Even Sam, who actually thinks the sun shines out of your ass, you left him too, and Sharon leaving is a surprise to no one here. You isolated yourself, and I shouldn't have let you, but I had some stuff to work through too. I'm sorry I wasn't around more to kick your ass these past two years, because Sam, as much as he tries to, just isn't up for the job, 'cause he doesn't see what a giant dork you are. That's not good for you."

"Is that why you're avoiding me, then? Because I've been avoiding everyone else?"

Bucky is quiet for a few moments, before shaking his head.

"No," he tells him simply, staring ahead this time, "I pulled away from you because you make me feel guilty."

Steve doesn't answer, just stares at Bucky's profile, not knowing how to react, waiting for the other man to explain, because he has no idea what to do with that information.

"You and Tony fucked this team up, Steve, I get that. That's on you both. But your reasons for taking things that far were _only_ your own. You were so driven into saving me, and helping me, that you let everything else go to hell in a hand basket, and you didn't even care," he pauses and turns to Steve again, looking as if he doesn't want to say what he has to say, "I'm not saying I'm not grateful, and I'm not saying I don't appreciate it, because I do. But you put helping me above the safety of everyone in your team, above the Accords, above everything else, and that's… That's heavy, Steve. That's a lot to put on a guy's shoulders, to live up to that, when I'm as fucked up as I am."

"I never expected anything from you, Buck. I just—"

"You were just helping your best friend," Bucky finishes for him with a sad smile, "I get that. But that Bucky went to war and never came back, and I don't know if the guy you became can be friends with the guy I am now. I'm not the same, I'll never be the same, and you went through hell to bring that guy back so many times, and he's not even here anymore," he sighs, shrugging with an uncomfortable look on his face before taking another long swallow of his beer, "I guess I didn't want to let you down again, so I pulled away."

"That's why you're around Tony," he says after a few moments, and Bucky shrugs, still staring ahead, "Because he doesn't put all of that on your shoulders, and he doesn't care who you were, just who you are."

Bucky shrugs again, but doesn't say anything — not that he had to, because Steve can see it's the truth.

Knowing what is happening, and _why_ it's happening, makes it no easier for him to know what he should do.

 **X**

He thinks about seeking Sam out first, but feels that he shouldn't, because it'd be like he's using his friend, and he can't do that. So he frets.

Who would have thought that no immediate danger to their planet would be such a stressful time?

So he watches them all.

He takes to forcing himself to go wherever they are — eating dinner, having breakfast, training — and he watches them, not knowing how or when to join in. He feels terrible, he _knows_ they think he's acting strange, but he doesn't know how to stop, doesn't know what else to do, so he watches them from his quiet cone of imposed silence, and no one comments on it until someone does.

Of course it's Natasha.

"You're being creepy," she tells him point blank one night, when most of them are gathered in the TV room, watching a show about… college. He thinks. There's paintball involved, so he's not a hundred percent sure on that, but anyway.

Mostly, he's been watching Tony and Bucky, and he can't really deny that he's a little jealous, and he can be honest with himself about that at the very least. Bucky is laughing at something Tony just pointed out, and Wanda is giggling, and Clint is trying to make everyone shut up so he can hear the dialog, and it's _home_ for them. This, the compound, their friends. It's _family_.

He feels like an outsider looking into something he wants to have but can't.

"Hm," he answers, and she scoffs at him.

"Why don't you join in?"

He sighs, not wishing to tell her he doesn't think he deserves it, even though it's the truth.

"I can't. Not yet."

She nods, and he thinks that if anyone would understand him, it _would_ be Natasha.

From that day on, she talks to him, and he finds himself feeling more comfortable in seeking her out. Slowly, Sam starts trying to bring him in too, and it works, to an extent. He gets along with Nat and Sam and Scott easily enough. Clint and Tony keep their distance, and it's strange, it's so strange.

At first, before the others joined them, when it was just the six of them and no one else, he and Clint and Tony would get along just fine, but now it's like they don't know how to be together anymore, not even as friends.

It's late one night when he goes to the kitchen, and stops when he realizes someone's in there already, and arguing, by the sounds of it.

"— not telling you what you should do, but you're not being fair," Tony's voice comes, and Steve stops and frowns. He shouldn't eavesdrop, but he does it anyway, because he's curious.

"Screw fair," comes Clint's reply.

"Come on, Barton," it's Bucky's voice this time, "You knew what you were getting into."

"I'm not saying I didn't. I just think it's rich that the two of you ambushed me into talking about this crap, when you're the ones who behave as if he has the plague."

"Hey!" Tony interjects, "I didn't pick his side. No one made _you_ pick his side. No one forced you out of retirement, and Laura leaving—"

"Laura leaving me has nothing to do with it!"

"Yeah, right," Tony scoffs.

"It doesn't!" Clint insists, and Steve can practically _hear_ Tony rolling his eyes.

"Then what is it? Because the guy is trying, Barton, we have to give him that, he is trying to get into this team again, and we need him, and we need to fix this mess before anything big hits us, and you _know_ it's coming. It always is. What is it?" Tony pushes, and Steve hears Clint sighing.

"I picked his side, and I was pissed at you, but I've been talking to Nat, and… I'm picking your side now."

Tony makes a noise that comes out muffles, probably because he has his head in his hands out of exasperation.

"There aren't supposed to _be_ sides in this! We're supposed to be a team! Teams don't have _sides, god!_ Why do I have to be the adult around here? It's very tiring."

"You're not talking to him. Isn't that a side?"

"No! That's me not being ready to deal with this shit yet!"

"Why is it different for you, then?" Clint asks, his voice belligerent, "Why do you get to keep on ignoring him if you're so insisting on getting everyone else not to do the same?"

"Because I can forgive Captain America. But I'm not sure I'll ever be able to trust Steve Rogers again," he tells him simply, and Steve leaves hurriedly after that.

It's like getting punched.

 **X**

"You do know it's not _really_ about you, right?" Natasha asks him one day as they jog, and he frowns.

"What isn't?"

"Tony not being able to talk to you. It's not on you," Sam explains, and Steve rolls his eyes.

"How is that not on me?" he asks, stopping, and then jumping, startled, when Bucky's voice sounds directly behind him.

"Have you ever had a hero, Steve?"

"Geez, Bucky, could you not give me a heart attack?"

The other man just smirks at him, pleased by his reaction, and Steve is reminded all over again that his best friend was such a jerk when they were kids.

Their friendship had been based on sarcasm and Bucky being overprotective. He misses it. It was a simpler time.

"Let's say," Bucky begins, starting to jog again, and the others follow at a leisure pace, "That you grew up hearing about a hero. Let's say your dad spent his whole life searching for this guy, telling everyone who would hear that the world would be a better place if only this one guy could be found. You spend your childhood hearing that, your teens years resenting it, and when you're a grown up, you meet the guy," Bucky turns around, and starts jogging backwards, facing Steve, "And he kind of lives up to the legend. He's good, and kind, and honest, and you hate him a bit for it, especially because he seems to despise you, but also because no one should be that good, and he _is_." He lets that sink in before going on, "Then this guy turns around and betrays you."

The words are like knives in his chest and he stops, making Sam, Natasha and Bucky stop too.

"Now, there are only two possible scenarios here — either the guy has always been a jerk, and you kind of have a lifetime of proof he isn't, or _you_ are, and he's betraying you because you're not worthy of being trusted in. Of being allowed in, of being his friend," Bucky takes a few steps closer, and tilts his head to the side a bit, "Now, knowing Tony for as long as you do, which one do you think he chose to believe in?"

Then Bucky turns around, and keeps on jogging away, as if he hadn't just dropped another bomb on Steve's already conflicted conscience.

 **X**

"You think he's waiting for me to apologize so he'll believe it wasn't all his fault?" Steve asks Natasha one evening, and she stares at him with a raised eyebrow that seems to be her trademark for 'Wow, you're slower than I thought.'

It's not like they haven't had any work in the past few months — they do plenty.

Fury just chooses to keep to smaller teams, to get them out there to fight in units that work well together, and Tony and Steve haven't been together in a mission ever since the ice things that Strange summoned.

"Did he ask Fury not to send us out together anymore?"

Natasha hums for a bit, taking a bite of her sandwich before answering, and she doesn't have to do it at all, because Hill is coming in.

"He didn't ask for anything, but Director Fury thought it was best."

"Because he doesn't think we can work well together anymore, until we fix this," he says, and Hill stares at him for a moment — there's something cold in her eyes now that didn't exist before all the trouble he put them through.

"No, he did it to spare Tony's feelings," she explains, and, when she sees Steve is frowning, she goes on, "I'm not being sarcastic."

She drops some files for Natasha, and then she leaves.

When he turns to stare at his friend, Nat simply shrugs, and takes another bite of her food, not answering him at all.

 **X**

He goes to the workshop.

It's a risky move, he knows. No matter where they're living, Tony always sets up a workshop, and a lab for Bruce, even now that he's missing — it's not as if they're short on cash, seeing as they're funded by Stark Industries, or at least their compound is. Steve doesn't really understand all that much about this, because he never had to.

He approaches quietly, hands in his pockets to stop himself from fidgeting. Steve just stands there for a while, staring as Tony works — it's a beautiful sight to see. He's so instinctual with his machines, his programs, his robots, Steve can almost believe they all read each other's thoughts for it to work as well as it does.

He was so wrong when he compared Tony to Howard, because Howard was in a constant battle with his tech, always beating it into submission, whereas Tony allows it to flow through him, always finding the path of least resistance, and making it work like a piece of art. Steve can only wish he were so talented at something as Tony is with his tech.

After a while, he can see Tony's shoulders tense, and the comm by his side comes to life.

"You're being creepy again, Rogers. What do you want?"

Steve gathers all the courage he possesses and squares his shoulders as if preparing for a fight.

A physical one.

He hopes to God it won't come to that, though.

"Can you open the door?"

Tony stops, turns to look at him, assessing him for a few moments before the door opens and Steve comes in. The door closes behind him, and he approaches Tony, but doesn't say anything for a second, because he isn't sure where to start.

"Out with it, Rogers. I have things to do that don't revolve around you, I'm sure you're shocked to hear that."

"I'm not perfect," he blurts, and Tony actually stops messing with schematics to look at him as if he's crazy.

"I'm perfectly aware of that, what with the knife still sticking out of my back and all."

"I don't— I don't mean with all that. I don't mean with the Accords, or the fighting, or with the Winter Soldier, I just. I'm not. I never was."

Tony actually lets out a heavy sigh, sitting on his stool and staring up at Steve with tired eyes.

"What's your point, Rogers? I'm really not up for long winded arguments here."

Steve bites his lip, trying to figure out how to put into words what he means to say without pissing Tony off even more.

"You all acted as if I was this… paradigm of righteousness and good-doing, and the worst thing is I bought into it too. My ma used to threaten to wash my mouth with soap at least twice a day, and I became the guy who says _Language_ during a fight. You all — and I'm not just talking about the team, I mean _everyone_ — acted as if I knew what I was doing, because I was this… icon for all that was good, and right, that I thought I was going to let everyone down if I weren't, so I tried, and I lied to myself and I think that by the end of it, I was actually thinking this was true. That I was actually _that_ good. That I was actually _that_ right about everything. I was never that."

He pauses, breathing hard when he stops, because he hadn't even realized how much he had changed because people thought he was this way or that. Tony is staring at him quietly, mouth set in a hard line, but he doesn't look angry — he looks… considering. There's a hard edge to him that Steve knows he usually reserved for Fury and politicians, but it's clear now on his face as he stares at Steve, and he wants to scream at the unfairness of it.

"Maybe that's why I got tunnel vision when it came to Bucky — he _knew_ I wasn't all this crap they piled on me, he knew. Maybe if I could get him back, I could get… _me_ back too," he says quietly, looking down and scoffing a bit at how absurd it all sounds, "And all I've managed to do was drive everyone away. I lost the team, and I lost you, and I lost him."

"You didn't _lose_ him, don't be so dramatic. He's just giving you both space to process who you are now."

Steve looks at him, head still down, face serious because he is actually curious about this answer.

"Did I lose you?"

Tony leans back on his stool, arms crossed in front of his chest, a screwdriver in one hand that he briefly points at Steve as he speaks.

"You never _had_ me, Rogers," Tony sighs, rolls his eyes as if he can't believe he's having this conversation at all, "Here's the thing — you were my team mate, and I thought we were friends, but we weren't."

"I—" he tries to interrupt, but Tony cuts him off with a scoff.

"You've just said yourself, none of us _knows_ you. You don't know who you are yourself, how can you say we were friends? We weren't. We made it work because we had to, and I put a _lot_ of effort towards not hating you, but now I see it was a losing battle all along, I could never _not_ hate you, because you know this guy you're saying you aren't? _That_ is the guy I grew up hearing about, and that's a guy I hate," Tony pauses, his face clearer now, not so much disapproving but more thoughtful, "Which may actually be a good thing."

"That you definitely hate me, and you don't have to try to be my friend again?" he asks, and Tony scoffs again.

"No. That you're someone else. There's hope yet if you really aren't that self-righteous jackass you've been for the past five years," he shrugs, "Who knows, maybe we'll end up not liking each other anyway, but at least it'll be a fair chance, a fresh start. You being whoever you are, and not believing you have me figured out just because you read a bunch of files and used to hang out with my dad before I was even born."

They stare at each other for a few seconds, Steve wants to do _something_ , say _anything_ that'll make this a beginning, that'll mark it as something new in their relationship, and he can't think of anything good enough, so he aims for the simple things.

He sticks out his hand, and Tony raises an eyebrow at it, staring at it incredulously.

"I'm Steve Rogers. Nice to meet you," he waits a beat, then two.

"Oh my god, it's like Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter," Tony mumbles, but does shake his hand, and it comes with a smirk, "You know who I am," he says with a wink, "And _you_ are a dork," he finishes, and lets go of Steve's hand, before turning around, "Now vamoose, I actually do have work to do, too many feelings today already, shoo."

Steve leaves, feeling lighter than he has in a year.

 **X**

The thing with having a clean slate is that Steve has a really hard time letting go of this image he imposed on himself because it was what people expected of him. He remembers being young and naive and a good man in general, someone who Erskine believed could be a good soldier because he was a good man, but he sees now that so much time hearing that he was truly everything good in this world had gotten to his head. But more than that, he had forgotten to be Steve to become Captain America full time, and there's a difference.

Everyone knows who they are — Tony never made it a secret, neither did Rhodey. Natasha had gone in front of the NATO and the US Government as Natasha Romanoff, and you only had to do a cursory search online to figure out that Scott Lang was Ant-Man. Everyone knew Bucky had been the Winter Soldier, and Bruce had never tried to escape his own identity anymore because it just wouldn't work. Barton is a name everyone knows belongs to Hawkeye, and Sam isn't trying to hide who he is either. Rhodey is known as the War Machine by everyone who owns a TV — everyone knows who they are. If their identities as superheroes were there only for their own protection, only to keep them safe, there wouldn't be a point to it in their case, but it isn't just about that.

Their identities as heroes are meant to separate who they are from what they do.

Natasha has a good sense of humor, and a kind heart, she likes to eat sitting on counters, and prefers to start her day slowly. The Black Widow is serious and gets the job done in the most efficient way possible. Clint is great at housework, and enjoys cleaning the house, and remodeling things, but Hawkeye is focused and good at following command without much questioning. Wanda is still very much a teenager in many ways, and she would go around eating junk food and watching TV shows about werewolves all day in her PJ's if she could, but the Scarlet Witch is solemn in her duty, always thinking her moves three, four times if she has the time. Steve could list a hundred ways in which each of them differs from their public counterparts, and he realizes, only now, only five years after he woke up, that he never did. He had allowed Steve Rogers and Captain America to be one and the same, and that had been a wrong move.

One that he intends to correct.

He's just not sure how.

Steve decides to start small, and goes for meals at the same time as everyone else, or at least most of everyone else, is around. With that, he finds out that everyone has a routine that they try to actively include some of the others in, and he is again reminded of how much he missed these past months. That night, when he gets to the kitchen, however, he is taken by surprise by a kid sitting at the kitchen table, wires and cables and tools all over the place, as the kid and Tony debate something with half completed sentences that no one seems to follow.

"It shouldn't be this complicated, come _on_ ," Tony is saying as he glares at some sort of circuit in front of him. The kid sighs and turns a couple of cables around, scribbling furiously on a notebook.

"It's not, we just got something wrong and—"

"I don't get things wrong," Tony says, his voice a bit muffled by the piece of cable he's keeping steady with his teeth, his fingers fiddling with the wiring already attached to the board.

"Everyone gets things wrong, and I don't know _why_ this isn't working, but it should. We did everything we were supposed to, and it's not working, so we did something wrong, that's just common sense."

Tony snorts, and Steve looks around curiously. Bucky and Natasha are sitting on a counter, both of them grinning at the two people at the table, clearly finding the whole thing amusing. Scott is leaning against the fridge, his fingers seem to itch to touch the tech on the table, but he doesn't offer help, and Steve tilts his head in question.

"What's going on?"

"They're doing homework," Natasha tells him with a smirk, and Steve is a bit lost for a second, because he has no idea who the kid is, but he would know if someone new was living at the compound.

Right?

"It's not _my_ homework," Tony says, his voice trying for stern and only hitting mildly annoyed, "But Underoos over there decided to not listen to me when I explained about his _priorities_."

"Protecting the people of New York from villains is a priority," the kid protests weakly, looking down and away at the stern look Tony finally manages to pull on him.

"It is. For the grown up professionals who actually have that job, not for sixteen year olds who have an aunt who'll eat him alive if he skips homework."

"I did get it done! It's not my fault that the guy went for the big circuit board first! I got my homework done, but the lizard guy ate it."

The kid tries to hide it but he's clearly proud of his joke, and by the way Tony's lips are trembling so is he.

There's something familiar about the kid's voice, though, he feels as if he should know it.

"Spider Man!" he exclaims when he remembers where he heard that before.

"Yeah. Hi. Captain."

"Just Steve is fine."

"Okay, Mister Steve."

"Just—"

"Give it up, Rogers, I've been trying to get him off the Mister thing for a year now, and it hasn't worked. Let it go. Even Natasha is Miss Natasha, so."

Steve considers his answer, and looks at Natasha for a clue, but she just smiles and shrugs, so he's on his own.

"Why are you helping him with his homework?"

"Because I won't have an intern of mine failing a subject in _high school_. At your age I was at MIT, kid."

"I know. But I'm not going to MIT, because I like New York," the kid answers in the tone of someone who's had this argument many times before.

Tony stares at him, and Steve sees a new side to Tony he had never thought he'd actually see — stern and concerned and worried and caring, like a parent.

"Kid, New York will still be here while you're in college. I promise I won't let it fall to bits, I'll even get someone to haunt Queens for you if you want. Just don't… Throw opportunities away just because you feel it's your responsibility to do everything on your own."

"I'm not!" the kid protests, and at Tony's snort, he glares a bit, "I'm really not, I just really like it here, and I can get my degree at NYU or Columbia. At the normal time. You know, with kids my age," he finishes with an embarrassed shrug, and Steve can see the stern look melt off of Tony's face.

"Yeah, I get that. It'll be good for you. If, you know, you actually manage to graduate High School alive."

"Hey, the bad guys aren't going to _kill_ me," the kid protests again, and Tony levels him with an incredulous look.

"Oh, I have every faith in that, your _aunt_ , on the other hand, that's something I'm not sure."

"Okay the two of you are giving me _hives_ , get away from the circuit board," Scott finally has had enough, it seems, and then he gets the board from Tony's hands, and starts going over it with the boy — Steve catches Tony smirking at Scott's back, and starts thinking that maybe this had been Tony's plan all along.

When he sees the tiny smirk the kid is trying to hide, unsuccessfully, by the way, Steve _knows_ that was Tony's plan all along.

Steve can't help smiling at the normalcy of it all, taking in the small things making up the scene he's just walked in — Natasha and Bucky relaxed as they watched the bickering, and Peter and Tony picking up a debate in the middle, as if it's something they started at some other point and couldn't finish it. Scott fixing the circuit board while explaining to Peter what he did wrong, and Peter jotting down the explanations like nobody's business in-between pauses in his conversation with Tony. It's easy.

Weird as hell, but easy.

All those months he had spent trying to fit in with these people, all the work he put in, all the time he spent trying to be The Leader, The Example, and he had lost his chance to have _this_ : actual trust, actual camaraderie, actual _friends_.

Even Sam, he thinks later, once they are all sitting in the TV room, a show playing quietly in the background, Tony messing around in schematics for improvements in Bucky's arms, Bucky himself perched beside him on the arm of the couch, throwing comments here and there, Natasha playing something on her phone, Clint effectively napping, and Vision reading on an armchair as Scott and Sam discuss something in quiet voices with Wanda watching nearby. Steve watches them, and he thinks _even Sam._ He never treated Steve as an _equal_ , but in either parts as his commander officer and someone who was under his wing as a counselor. They joked and quipped, and he knows for certain that Sam has his back, of that he has no doubts, the man had risked his life for him more than once, but were they friends? How much of him does Sam _know_? Or Natasha? The two people he considers closest to him nowadays — Bucky is in a category apart from the rest. He thinks Bucky knows him inside out and not at all, all at once.

How much does he know of them, really? How much does he even know of Bucky, who is right now discussing the tech that makes up his arm with a propriety that speaks of experience coming from practical work, and who, back in the day, thought all of Stark's tech was, at most, amusing, but not something they would actually use in their lives.

It's a bit overwhelming, thinking all of this. All of this strange world that he now sees he doesn't, and even can't, control. He hasn't found a place in it — all the others, they seem to know where they are, who they are, and it's not about him being thrown on this future he knew nothing about, it's him not knowing who he is anymore without his Captain America persona, without his anger, and sadness and loss.

Steve Rogers, the last bits of Steve Rogers, went into the ice and never came out, but he had been losing himself way before that, even before losing Bucky, before rescuing him.

The second Senator Brandt offered him a chance at helping and got him dancing in a costume, that's when he lost the first bit of what made him himself.

He can't blame it on Tony, on Bucky, on Peggy or the ice — it was his choice to take that opportunity, and after that, he took every chance to prove to everyone around him that he _had_ a place among them, among the soldiers, among the heroes, and he forgot how to be a person instead.

It was a terrible realization to come to, noticing that you don't know who you are, or what you really are like, because, he suddenly sees, he had been so busy trying to be whatever people around him _needed_ him to be, that he had had no time to be who he wanted to be.

He leaves the room quietly, going to the roof, and sitting down, watching the night sky and feeling miserable, wishing he could get drunk, or wishing to know what would help right now, because he doesn't. He doesn't know himself enough to understand what he needs to do to feel better. How pathetic is that?

It doesn't take too long for someone to come out after him, and he smiles wanly when he sees it's Sam.

"It all came crashing down, huh?" the man asks, sitting heavily beside him, but facing forward, no judgment in his voice.

"What do you mean?"

"Tony told me what you two talked about," he says with a small shrug, and Steve notices it's _Tony_ , not Stark, "I felt like you were going through some stuff on your own, but I'm here if you need to talk. Before _this_ crazy gig, that was my job after all."

"I'm not sure if what I'm going through classifies as PTSD," he says quietly, a frown on his face, and Sam shrugs.

"Maybe not. I _am_ your friend, no matter who you are, or who you think you are. I trust your judgment, not only in battle, but in life, and I admire your loyalty to those you care about more than anything. I think this is already three things you can be sure of, and it's better than nothing."

Steve frowns at that.

"What _did_ Tony tell you about our talk?"

"He said you sounded… _lost._ That you went on and on about how you're not the guy he hated on principle, because you've never been that guy, but he did make a point to mention you never said _who_ you are right now."

"Perceptive," Steve mumbles, and Sam huffs a small laugh at that.

"I know, it's spooky what you learn about the guy once you get past his annoying public self."

"Apparently." His voice is dry, because he's getting a bit tired of everyone going on and on about what Tony is or isn't. He knows he shouldn't, that it isn't fair, but there it is now, a tiny sting of something he can identify as jealousy once he thinks about it. He sees Sam's pleased smile, and frowns again, "What's the smile about?"

"It's getting on your nerves, the whole thing with everyone defending Tony around here, isn't it?"

"It's not that," he defends himself, and Sam merely arches an eyebrow at him, "Not really, it's just… Now everyone's saying he's this swell guy, and everyone adores him, but it wasn't like that before. It wasn't… I didn't…" he starts, and can't really put into words what he wants to say, frowning as he parses where this frustration is coming from, "I didn't make you guys follow me on the Accords. I shouldn't gave dragged you all into my search for Bucky, and my need to help him, but I didn't force you to choose my side. I didn't make any of you stand against Tony, and now that we're all back it's like everyone knew he was right all along, and I don't get that. I don't get why everyone keeps acting as if Tony is their best friend when not one of you defended him — I actually remember quite a lot of crap being said about him when we went into hiding, before we left Wakanda. It's not all on me, I didn't fuck this whole thing up by myself!" his voice is quite loud by the end of it, and Sam is staring at him with approval in his eyes, which makes Steve extremely confused.

"Finally," his friend said, "How does it feel to actually _say_ what's bugging you instead of brooding on your own and not letting anyone in?"

"It feels… Really?" he asks, his voice cracking between a sob and a laugh, and he doesn't even know anymore, "This is what you get from… I…" he can't go on because he doesn't know _how_.

Sam nods.

"I agree, you didn't do this on your own, we all know that. No one thinks Tony had been right all along, not even _Tony_. But we worked through it a couple of months back. There was awkwardness, and there were arguments, and I think Scott actually punched Tony one time, and then got knocked off on his butt by Rhodey, but we worked through it. You're getting the _end_ of a long process that happened around you while you were worrying that you were letting everybody down, and pulling yourself away from everyone who cares about you — and even Tony, who has the emotional perception of a dirty shoelace, noticed," Sam pauses and turns to face Steve's profile, one leg hanging out of the roof, the other under him as he talks calmly, "We worked through that because we had to, because we could see more clearly without the pressure of everything and everyone we were facing back then. There were a thousand small factors that created the situation we found ourselves in, and if we had kept our cool, we may have gone through that as a team, but we couldn't because it's not who we are. We are too different, and Ross was making everything worse. Say what you will about Fury, but the man knows how to get shit done, and now that he's here to deal with the politics and all that shit, everything is going way more easily than it was back then. We made mistakes, but I think we made it so we could actually turn the Accords into something that makes sense for all of us, and that might have taken a whole lot longer if we had all gone along and signed it, or if we had all gone along and rebelled. It could have gone a thousand different ways — and that's where all of the good will towards Tony is coming from: it could have gone a thousand different ways, and a thousand ways worse for all of us, especially the ones who supported you. Tony made sure that not only we were forgiven, but he also made sure we _knew_ he was aware that he had fucked up too. And that he is willing to do his best to make it up to us, and we are doing our best to make it up to him," Sam pauses, looks into Steve's eyes when the man turns to him, his voice earnest when he starts talking again, "No one thinks you did this on your own. But everybody thinks you're the only one who hasn't let it go, and who hasn't worked through it. That's why it feels strange, and you feel left out: because everyone forgave everyone else, but we can't really forgive you, not even Tony can, because you haven't forgiven yourself."

"And Tony has?" he asks, voice quiet.

Sam scoffs.

"I don't know Tony enough to know the true answer to that, but I don't think Tony forgives himself _anything_. He has practice at thinking he's wrong, and working towards what he believes is right anyway. That's not you."

"Maybe it is me," he mutters, and Sam scoffs with a tinge of irritation in it.

"Out of all the things you could choose to be, you're going with self-destructive?"

"It works for _Tony_ ," he answers, a bit of disdain in the man's name.

"Because I've had over forty years of practice."

Steve almost chokes on his beer when he hears Tone's voice, and he turns to look at him with huge eyes, missing Sam's smirk.

He asks for a new beginning, and then he badmouths the man behind his back.

If this is who he actually is, he'll have to agree with Tony, he's a shitty person.

"I didn't— I meant—"

Tony scoffs at his excuses, waving them away, and sits on his other side on the roof, a bottle of water in his hand.

Sam gets up and leaves, without a word to either Steve or Tony, and Steve starts feeling a bit ambushed here.

"I'm going to be honest with you here, Rogers, if Bucky hadn't been giving me the stinky eye for the past hour downstairs, I wouldn't have come here at all, because I hate this… _feelings_ stuff. But, as Sam so kindly pointed out to me earlier today, it may seem to the others that by not acknowledging you in any way, I may be leading other people to do the same, and as I am, now, apparently, one of the sane members of the team, with people who look up to me — although, how _that_ happened, I'll never know — I have to take the high road, and come over to mend the bridges."

He pauses, turns around a bit, and smirks in Steve's general direction, who can only stare, and wait.

"Now, I'm not going to take into account your little remark from before, because I am being the bigger person here, so I won't say anything about that at all."

"Right," Steve replies, amused despite his current mood. Tony's expression clears a little bit at that, sensing the teasing, and Steve has to marvel at how many layers that man has for him to think that he's finally seeing the final, real version of Tony and still encountering something else underneath.

"I'm going to start by saying that I meant what I said in the workshop, we can have a fresh start. If that's what you want, I mean. I'm also going to say that I think I—" he stops, takes a deep breath and shakes his head before going on, "I'm going to say that I think I understand what you did, _why_ you did what you did. It wasn't about protecting _me_ , you not telling me about my parents, it was about protecting _Bucky_ and… Honestly, Steve, there's a tiny piece of me that's man enough to admit that I almost envy the both of you for that."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Steve asks with a frown.

"Did you know that, with all that shit that went down with the Mandarin," he looks at Steve and goes on when he nods, showing that he does know, "Pepper fell into am exploding oil container. For a whole minute there, I thought she was dead — no take backs, no returns, I thought, with all my heart, she was dead," he goes quiet again, swallowing dryly, and Steve can see his eyes shining in the moonlight, unshed tears that he doubts will fall, not in front of him, and not now, maybe never, "You know what I did?" Tony asks then, his voice with that tiny lilt of self-deprecation when he knows he's going to say something that's going to make even more people hate him, "I stood there, and my mind kept going a mile a minute, thinking up ways to defeat Aldrich. I didn't jump after her — I mean, it would have been _stupid_ , because she came back, like, three minutes later to save my ass, and kick Killian to hell and back, but I didn't jump after her, because my skin was safe for that moment. It didn't occur to me to jump after her," he looks back at Steve, and he can't look away from the man's half smile and shining eyes, "You'd have jumped after her. You'd have jumped after _anyone_. And if that had been Bucky, you wouldn't have even seen his whole fall. You'd have gone after him in time to see him fall by your side."

"I did see him fall. And I didn't jump after him," he admits, voice quiet and a bit broken, and he's surprised to see that his own eyes are now burning.

Tony takes a drink of his water, tilts his head to the side a bit before speaking.

"And for that, you're going to keep jumping after him and everyone you care about, because _once_ you made one decision that you think it's wrong, and it wasn't."

"I could have—" he starts, but Tony interrupts him.

"You could have fallen into the hands of Hydra, and instead of a partial super soldier, we'd have had _you and him_ to deal with along the years. It could have been you killing my father instead of the Winter Soldier. There wouldn't have been a Captain America to stand by us when the Avengers were formed, hell, the Avengers may not even have _existed_ , to start with. It's survivors' guilt, and you bet your ass that everyone in that building has it to some extent, but what we keep in mind, what _you_ have to keep in mind, is that the world is a better place because you're in it. Because we all are in it, and I don't just mean that because we're super heroes, but because we're people. Not jumping after Pepper was the right choice. Not falling after James was the right choice. And you have to keep making the right one, even if it hurts, because we, the team, and your friends, need you."

"So you forgive me?" he asks, voice rough, still processing what he heard, not quite sure if he dares believe it.

Tony shrugs a bit, facing forward again.

"I don't have the attention spam to hold a grudge for too long, I think I may have broken a record with you already. We're good, Steve."

He swallows at that, facing ahead too.

They stay, on the top of the roof, watching as night passes around them for a long time.

Steve feels at peace for the first time in a long, long while.

 **X**

Apparently, Spider Man showing up around the compound is a common occurrence he had only missed because he was off brooding — Natasha's words, not his.

He comes by a few days a week after school to work with Tony, or he calls a few times, and in one remarkable occasion, his aunt shows up, dragging him along, so she could confirm Peter's whereabouts that same afternoon with Tony, in person.

Steve watches the scene unfold with a certain degree of incredulity, because Tony Stark faces everything with a healthy dose of sarcasm and charm, but he seems somehow cowed by this woman.

Apparently, Peter had been out in the city when he had told her he'd been with Tony all afternoon. As he's not the best of liars, or so Steve is gathering from his stammering excuses, she decided to confront Tony himself, in person, so they can't arrange their lies to complement each other.

He'll give it to her, she's smart.

"So," she starts, looking from Tony Stark to her nephew, shoes tapping on the floor, "Were you or were you not with Mr. Stark this afternoon?" Peter risks a look up at Tony, who tries to convey something with a look, but she snaps her fingers in front of her nephew's face quickly, "No looking at him, I asked you a simple question."

"I was—" the kid starts, at the same time as Tony begins with, "Technically—"

"So you lied to me," she tells Peter, and the kid just looks so miserable that Steve decides to throw him a bone.

"Technically, Mrs Parker, Peter _was_ here, but he wasn't with Tony, he was with me," she turns to look at him, and Steve can see Tony and Peter trading a confused look. The kid is way too much like Tony, "You see, with all his… extra-curricular activities, we thought it may help him along to have some physical training, and we were seeing to that this afternoon. He wasn't sure you'd approve, so we didn't say anything. I insisted. I apologize."

He gives her his most winning smile, and she straightens his eyes at him, and turns to look at her nephew.

"Is this true?"

The kid's eyes widen even more and he flounders for another second.

"Would Captain America _lie_ , Aunt May? Thats like accusing all of America of… lying."

She stares at him a few more moments before sighing.

"Thank you, then, for helping him," she says, and then Tony distracts her with babble about Peter's future as he escorts her out, and Peter waits until they are out of earshot to talk again.

He lets out a huge relieved sigh.

"Thank you, man, like, so much, you have no idea. I just told her I was with Tony, because she's usually cool with it, but I think he was out this afternoon, and she saw some pics, and then I was toast, and thanks. Especially because, you know, I kind of get that you don't like me very much."

Steve is surprised by that.

"Why wouldn't I like you?"

"Well, you did throw a truck at me the first time we met. And I stole your shield. And kind of went against you in a fight, which I still maintain I could have won, but, you know, you had help."

"Kid, stop talking," Tony say as he comes back, and he looks downright _pissed_.

Steve takes a small step back and waits to see where this is going.

"Where were you?" Tony demands more than asks, and Peter seems to shrink in on himself.

"Mr. Stark…"

"Don't you Mr Stark me. Where were you, and why did we have to get Captain America to lie for us?"

"We didn't _get_ him, he did it on his own and—"

" _Peter_ ," Tony says, and it's not the name, the word, it's the _way_ he says it, as if he's one second away of breaking into pieces, and Peter just takes a deep breath.

"I wasn't doing anything dangerous, just small stuff. I was trying to get a few cool pictures to sell, so I could get May a cool present because her birthday is coming up, and I got caught up, but I didn't want to tell her I was doing a job thing, because then she would want to know _why_ , and I didn't want to tell her and spoil the surprise."

Tony takes a second to stare at the kid, and then he turns to Steve shaking his head.

"When he goes toe to toe with a lizard man or gets himself electrocuted by random guy, or hunted down by murdering rats or whatever those things were, he tells his aunt. Then he gets a _job_ , and it's all secrets," he turns back to Peter, "God, you're so weird, kid."

Peter looks relieved at that, and Tony messes up his hair, before pulling him into the kitchen. Steve, not knowing quite why, follows along.

The kid eats like he hasn't seen food in _days_ , and then beats a hasty retreat in search of Scott, because, apparently, he needs to know something the electrical engineer will be able to help him with.

"That kid is giving me more gray hairs than being Iron Man ever did," Tony says, watching the boy disappear into the elevator.

Steve turns to look at him, but sees he's smiling fondly.

"How did you find him, anyway?" Steve starts, and Tony sighs, leaning back on his stool.

"He's one of the regrettable things I did during our little… Disagreement. Found him weeks before anything happened, and I was going to let him turn eighteen before approaching him, but then the whole things with the Accords happened, and, well — you did meet him in Berlin," he says, as if it explains everything, which it kind of does. Tony had brought a child into a fight of that size, and Steve had taken that child down with no remorse, "It turned out for the best, though. That kid has a knack for finding trouble, and after a few… problems, he knows he can come to me when he needs it. He knows he has people at his back, and people who care for him, and I'm still working on him believing that he's not the only person responsible for fixing every problem in the world, but it's a work in progress."

"You two seem to get along," he points out, and Tony shrugs a bit, producing a bag of blueberries out of the apparent blue, and picking one, tossing it into his mouth.

"He reminds me a bit of myself. And Bruce. Also you," Tony says, and Steve is a bit surprise at that, "Except that I want him to know he has people who have his back. I never really…" Tony stops, seeming to come to a decision, and very slowly offers Steve the packet of blueberries. Steve picks a few from it, and starts tossing them into his mouth as Tony watches for a few seconds, and the man shakes his head before going on, "You probably don't know this, but Peggy Carter did," he starts, and Steve stares at him with eyes wide, "My father had a butler, his name was Jarvis. He's the one I modeled, well, _my_ Jarvis after, and he was the last person I remember giving a fuck about me at all while I was growing up. He worked with Agent Carter a couple of times, before she and my dad set up S.H.I.E.L.D., and when I was born, he and his wife took care of me. My mom wasn't very… motherly. I loved them, don't get me wrong, but knowing your parents care for you, and _believing_ it when they're never around is never easy. It got better when I got older, and I think that I could have had a decent relationship with my mom, at least, once I became an adult, but my father…" he shakes his head, words calm and deliberate, as if he's forcing himself to speak, and Steve _gets it_. He does. He's explaining to Steve why he hated that Steve, the one who was his dad's war pal, "I don't know much about him during the war, really, most stuff was classified, anyway, but I knew him after, and he was… well, he was a mean drunk. Always sending me away, always pushing me out. I think there's a part of me that always thought he was afraid, because he could _see_ that I would get so much farther than him, if for nothing else, then because I wouldn't have to start from scratch like he did. I don't want to do that. I don't think I'm ever going to actually have kids, but if I see someone with that amount of potential, then I want to help them get as far as they can and have them know I would never resent them for being that good."

"That's why you've taken him under your wing."

Tony nods once, and then sighs, getting up.

"I better go and see what he's up to with Scott before we end up with Peter learning how to hack things he shouldn't be hacking into."

Steve awkwardly waves at Tony as he leaves, getting a smile out of the man, and then he sits by himself for a while, thinking his choices over.

It's a strange day in life when he thinks that an alien invasion would be easier than dealing with his personal life.

 **X**

Steve startles when a folder falls in front of him with a small bang, and then he looks up to see Bucky smirking at him before taking a seat on the other side of their kitchen counter.

"I think I liked you better when you were in the freezer," he says calmly, and sees Rhodey's eyes going wide at his comment, but Bucky merely laughs quietly, before nudging the folder closer to him.

It's just the three of them in the kitchen that morning — Clint and Natasha are out in a reckon mission, Tony is away for Stark Industries business, and all the others are, as far as Steve knows, sleeping.

"That folder is for your eyes only, don't let anyone know you have it," Bucky tells him and Steve frowns in response.

"Then maybe I shouldn't have it," he tells Bucky, and the man rolls his eyes at him.

"You should read it," Rhodey says, and Steve turns to look at him, "If that's what I think it is," he trails off and Bucky nods at him — clearly the both of them know what it is, "Then you should read it. It may make it easier for you to understand why Tony hated you, and why you were such a touchy subject for him at first."

"This is about Tony?" he asks, his voice betraying his confusion. He thought they had been making progress.

"No," Rhodey says, and his eyes are a bit sad as he speaks, "It's about Howard."

 **X**

The whole report had been written by Peggy, some time after Howard had passed away. More of a collection of memories than an official document, Steve can recognize her pattern in the writing as if she was speaking out loud right by his side as he reads her words and starts to make a little more sense of the man that Tony has become, and how Howard had made him get there.

Bucky and Peggy had been his world back in his first life. But there was someone else, though, who was part of his world back then. Someone apart from Bucky and Peggy and his Howling Commandos that he always thought he could trust to do the right thing, even if he liked playing at being a jerk, and that someone was Howard. He wasn't always easy to get along with, and yet Steve loved him too, but every day he sees the marks Howard left on Tony, he starts hating the man more and more.

Howard had the wrong kind of background to be working for the government.

His parents didn't have deep pockets, and he wasn't from a traditional family – the only thing that got him where he was had been his own effort, his own genius brain, and a _lot_ of hard work.

World War II was a terrible time for everyone, but Howard wouldn't lie and say that it wasn't one of the reasons he had so much money – he worked for the government, he got more contracts than he could possibly deal with alone, and he fucking flourished in the business world. Apart from that slight trouble he had with the SSR thinking he had stolen his own tech to sell in the black market, life was good no matter what.

Except.

Well, except there were some doors money couldn't really open. He could be a genius and a war hero, and he could have helped establish S.H.I.E.L.D., but some clubs still refused him entrance, and in some social settings, he was still seen as the "new rich", the second-generation immigrant who couldn't quite breach their ranks just by having money.

Howard detested being denied anything, even if he didn't really want it. He liked his life, the way he could have ten girls in a week, being a bachelor and living day to day, tinkering with his inventions and making bucket loads of money while he was at it. However, being told he _couldn't_ have something was usually the stepping stone for him to devise a way that he _could_ , and so the answer became quite clear: he should get married. Marrying into an old blood, old money kind of family would get him anywhere he wanted.

Maria Collins Carbonell was a pretty girl in her mid-twenties, who was having some trouble finding a place in the world – her family was old and traditional, but the war had pretty much wiped out their money, and so she couldn't actually find a job because she had never been trained for work, and also couldn't hope to find a suitable husband in her own class – Howard and she met at a fundraiser ball, him with a gaggle of girls trailing after him and a glass of scotch permanently being refilled in his hand; she in a secondhand gown her mother had managed to procure so she could come and maybe find a rich widower to marry.

It was a good arrangement, really. Stark was crude and rough, very much unlike the men she was used to deal with, but he had money and needed the social status, which she had. It would be a good life, definitely, and it certainly wouldn't be the first marriage to be made without feelings being involved.

Problem was, Maria clearly underestimated what being in close contact with Howard Stark would be like.

The man was a player, first and foremost, and his fame with the ladies wasn't just for show – he went through women like a writer goes through pens, because he made them all feel _special_. Those moments when Howard Stark was looking at a woman in the eyes, he made them feel as if they were the only thing that mattered in the universe, and Stark didn't just turn his charm off when he was at home – he may not _love_ Maria, she wasn't even sure he knew how to love someone that way, but he was there, and she was pretty, and they were married, so why not?

As if it was meant to be, Maria fell in love with her husband, which wouldn't be a problem at all if it weren't for the fact that her husband was Howard Stark.

Howard Stark didn't _do_ love.

She tried confessing her feelings for him a few times, but was never sure whether he understood her or if he just thought she was being charming and a good wife, and Maria was, by that point, at a loss.

Until she had a great idea, that, in her eyes, could make her marriage _real_ in a way that right now it just wasn't: Maria got pregnant.

What man didn't want to carry on his legacy in an offspring? Hopefully, she could be pregnant with a boy, and then what wouldn't Howard do for her, really?

Turns out, he would do pretty much nothing for her, because Howard had never wanted – or planned – to have kids.

It should have been something they talked about in their first year of marriage, or, even better, before they got married, but it really didn't occur to Maria that a man, a family man, with money to spare and a young and willing wife, wouldn't want a child. Howard was a bit eccentric at times, a bit strange, but she had never thought he would be so odd as to not want to have a son or a daughter to carry on his family name.

Her seven months of pregnancy were some of the worst she had ever lived. By then, her mother was long gone, and Maria was the last Carbonell left, which meant she didn't even have her own family around to comfort her.

She had few friends – mostly because every woman who encountered Howard was prey in his eyes, and she didn't think it appropriate to have male friends.

Maria was alone, with an angry husband, a child neither of them actually wanted, and an uncertain future ahead of them.

One night, when she was seven months along, Howard suggested that maybe they should split up – he would pay her bills in Europe or somewhere else, and he could stay and live his life in America as he had always done.

Maria had a panic attack, and had to be taken to the hospital, where she had a C-section, and thus Anthony Edward Stark was born.

Howard looked at Anthony and snorted a bit, as if the child was a passing amusement. He didn't mention Europe or divorce anymore, but he never touched Maria again either.

If she had felt lonely and isolated before, then it was _nothing_ compared to what she was feeling now – having Anthony around only ever reminded her of her failures as a wife and a woman. Her whole marriage was such a convoluted lie she couldn't even believe she had been involved in it, and things started spiraling out of control when Tony was just a few months old.

Howard, to no one's surprise, was not exactly the fatherly type. What _was_ a surprise to Maria was that she wasn't exactly motherly either. She gained no pleasure knowing that little life depended on her, she held no desire to feed him or sing him to sleep. As soon as it was acceptable, she hired a nanny, and stayed as far away from Anthony as she could.

Peggy had been around a few times back then, although working on S.H.I.E.L.D. took up so much time she had barely the time to make sure her _own_ home wasn't being driven to the ground, and she certainly didn't have the time – or the temperament – to be around the Starks for long.

She and Jarvis had a working relationship, he was usually the go-between for her and Howard, and she noticed when the man started looking more and more worried about something. She pressed a bit and he gave her a small view into what was going on with Howard's life, and Peggy didn't really know what to think.

Peggy didn't really come around as often as she would have liked, or even as much as she would have wanted, but Anthony seemed to her such a bright, good child that she never thought there was something wrong with the way he was being raised.

She tried befriending Maria, making it clear that nothing would ever, ever happen between her and Howard, since they had known each other since the war, and the only thing that kept their so-called friendship together was their love for Steve.

Oh, Steve.

The first time he was brought into a conversation, Anthony was two and being taken care of by the new nanny, while the adults enjoyed some drinks in the living room. Her husband wasn't there, which was just as well, because Howard seemed to take great pleasure in telling Maria about their fondue story and many others that happened during the war. It was all quite common, if it wasn't for Howard's parting comment, when she was already leaving.

"I think he was the only person I actually really loved in my life."

Peggy put it down as drunken sentimentalism, but Maria heard that as the cruelest of jabs – he loved a dead man from twenty years before, but he didn't love her, or her child, or anyone else, for that matter, but himself.

And Steve.

Howard never took the time to explain to his wife that he loved Steve for being all that Howard would never, ever be. A good man, a good soldier, committed to a cause and willing to literally die for it – Howard never had that, he never believed in something so much he would give his life to see it happen – he loved his own skin a bit too much to be that kind of person. He never told her that, and even if he had, Maria would probably never understand it either – she too was selfish and self-centered, the spoiled little girl that never really got to get the toy she wanted, the way she wanted.

They just weren't very good people, and having a child didn't change that in them.

Jarvis would watch little Anthony as he went through nannies at an alarming rate: some of them scared away by Maria, some by Howard, some by Anthony himself – and what a nightmare child Anthony was.

The boy had trouble sleeping and tended to stay awake for nights on end, having small naps here and there, never long enough for the adults responsible for him to really rest. He was always uneasy, always moving and talking at a speed that wasn't fast enough to catch up to his thoughts. He was always disassembling things even way before he thought he could put them back together, and he had no limits.

Maria found no joy in his antics, but she also didn't care enough to try and put an end to them. And Howard…

Howard only started paying attention to Anthony when he was four, got into his workroom and build a circuit board – a working one.

For a whole second, Howard stared at his son, working away as if he actually _knew_ what he was doing, and a swell of pride filled his chest – _he did that_.

And then Antony had showed him the circuit, and Howard's thoughts caught up to him thinking, no. _He_ did that. At four years old.

The sole reason Howard had been successful his whole life was his intelligence – he wasn't just smart, he was a _genius_ , he stood apart from the rest of human kind, because he was better – but even he wouldn't have been able to build a circuit board at four, or an engine at six.

He tried, he fucking _tried_ so hard to be proud of his son and his accomplishments, but at the same time all he could think was _he's better than you_.

He's better than you, and he has it easier than you.

Anthony wouldn't have to fight his way into the world – the world would be open to him because he was handsome (how wouldn't he be with him and Maria as his parents?), he was rich and well bred, and now, apparently, a genius. There would be nothing his kid wouldn't be able to get, nothing he couldn't do, and even Howard's legacy in the world would be forgotten when Tony reached his full potential.

He would become obsolete when his son became a man in his own right, and Howard had a really hard time coming to terms with that particular thought.

When Tony was seven, he shipped him off to boarding school. He didn't even drive the kid there – Jarvis took him, and made sure he was all settled in before coming back.

By then, Howard had managed to drive Peggy away, and his drinking had never been worse. When Maria realized her child didn't live in the house anymore, she started taking anti-depressants like they were going out of style, because now she didn't even have to pretend to be a mother anymore.

They were falling apart, and Jarvis was doing his best to keep the pieces close together so outsiders wouldn't see them breaking, but it was so hard.

Peggy only ever heard about Tony from Jarvis, who loved the kid as if he was his own – certainly way more than Howard or Maria ever did.

When Tony was fifteen, he got into MIT, and Howard had hired a young man called Obadiah Stane to work with him. He told Tony it was just because Tony had to complete his degrees before coming to work with him, but both of them knew, by then, that Howard would never really want to work with Tony. He had a grudging respect for his son, and his greatest project had been left for him – a gift Howard would give no one else, even if there was anyone else who could finish it – but he couldn't quite deal with staring at a better person than him in the face every day. Maria, by then, had found some common ground with her husband, and the two of them had a soundly peaceful run of almost two years in their marriage, quite possibly the best part of their whole relationship. Even Tony had been hopeful of their future as a family at some points.

When Tony was seventeen both his parents died in a supposed car accident, and he was left alone, with Obadiah as his guardian and CEO of his company. Jarvis stood beside him at the funeral, and took him back to school, and did all he could, but some wounds are too deep to heal.

Peggy heard all of this from Jarvis over the years – sometimes, she wrote on the report, she wishes she could have been there for Tony, but she also knows she wouldn't have made that much of a difference.

Who was she after all, in Tony's life, to make it better when his own parents had managed to make it so bad?

She lost contact with the Starks when Tony was twenty, and Jarvis died of a heart attack.

It's clear to anyone who reads it that Peggy's regret and sorrow are etched on her every word. A final note tells him she misses Jarvis something fierce, way more than she ever did Howard. He was her friend, and a better man than most.

Steve is not really sure what he's supposed to do now – after all, he had always wanted to know what was the problem between Tony and Howard, and he does.

But then what?

He can't take back what Howard did, and he isn't even sure that he's to blame for their problems — he was, after all, dead all those years.

He's still staring at the report in his hands, sitting once again on the roof of the compound when he hears footsteps, and sees Tony coming towards him, a bottle of whiskey and two glasses in his hands.

"I've been holding back on the drinking thing," Tony starts, sitting and serving them a healthy dose of the drink, "But I feel that this is a conversation best served with alcohol."

Steve doesn't know what to say, so he keeps quiet, taking the glass that's offered him and watching Tony carefully.

"Your girl didn't hold back when talking about my old man in that, but it wasn't all so…" he gestures ahead a bit, and Steve can almost see the bluish glow that gesture usually brings in his holograms coming to life by his will alone, "Dramatic," he settles for the word and takes a sip — small, all things considered, "My mom and I actually had a pretty decent relationship once I started talking in full sentences. She taught me how to play the piano, and we had the same taste for a few things. But my dad…"

"He was never an easy man," Steve states quietly, not quite knowing what to say, or even if he _should_ say something.

Tony scoffs at that.

"I am not an easy man, Rogers. Neither are you, for that matter. Even Natasha isn't an easy man, if we're going there, but Howard was…" he stops, squints ahead for a few moments, seeming to come to a conclusion, "Bucky is your trigger. Someone says his name, you go blind with this need to rescue him," Steve wants to argue that point, but he feels that this isn't the moment, "Howard is my trigger. You talk about him, I want to punch things, and quite possibly hurt people. Add to that the _you_ in the equation, and things got pretty messed up pretty fast ever since our first encounter."

"I didn't mean to offend you that day," he tries to defend himself, and Tony squints at him, a sardonic smile on his lips.

"You basically said I wasn't good enough to be there with all of you. If that's you _not_ trying to offend someone…" he trails off, and Steve scowls.

"By then you had offended me too, I was just goading you. But yeah, thinking back, I did compare you to your father in my head, and I wasn't… You weren't what I was expecting. Your father may have thought I was this great person, but truth is that he and I never spent too long together, and I couldn't even begin to think of Howard in a combat situation, he just wasn't the person for it," he pauses, drinking some of his whiskey, "It would have gotten his suit dirty for one." Tony chuckles at that, "You just looked so unimpressed by me, and it all just kind of went downhill from there. With the help of the scepter."

"I get it, we were both dicks. But I was in the difficult position that… Because of all his talk, I couldn't like you. The way I grew up, you were the reason my parents were never happy," Tony explains, his glass empty. He keeps talking as he refills it, "I know it's crazy, I also know you're not that guy, that _no one_ was that guy, and it's just one more thing my dad messed up, but for me it was like… I couldn't like you, and I couldn't really hate you."

Tony stops talking, and Steve doesn't say anything — he feels like this isn't really for him anymore, this is not _his_ own journey to find out who he really is deep down, but something Tony needs as well.

"The way I grew up, the way I was raised, my father was the standard by which I was measured, and, to him, I always came out lacking. I see now that this was his own screwed up way of showing me he thought I could do better, be better, but back then, I was just a kid," he says, shrugging, eyes shining again, and for a guy who doesn't even like him that much, Tony sure opens himself to him more than he had ever seen him do with anyone else, "All I wanted was to hear he was proud of me, and all I got was how amazing Captain America was, and I could never _be_ Captain America, that's not how I was built. I could be Howard, though, and I think that, on some level, that was not as good for him. He thought you were so much better than everyone else, and he wanted his son to be more like the guy he admired. Instead, he got this," he gestures to himself with his glass, and Steve shakes his head.

"The man he thought he knew existed in comic books and war stories, not in real life. No one can compare to a story, Tony, let alone a kid. And—" he stops and sighs, not knowing if that's his place or not, but Tony had come to him, not the other way around, "You're not like him."

Tony turns to look at him at that moment, an eyebrow raised, glass shining in his hand, disbelief in his every feature.

"You're not. Not your charm, not your behavior, not your way with tech. Maybe you got your smarts from him, but in every other way, you're _you_ , and I've never met someone like you. You're scary smart, and whenever we were on a mission together, I was always half afraid you'd think of a better plan on the spot and throw all our training to the air because you could solve it so much better than us. Even with the Accords, I was so against that, Tony, so completely against it, and you almost had me convinced to sign the damn thing. You're charming, and I was wrong that day, when I said you always come first, because you think of everything at once, and that's amazing and scary at the same time. Even with your work, your father always fought with his inventions, he beat them into submission, but you make them sing, watching you work is like watching art. I don't know where your dislike for me came from, and I know what you said before was right — we were never friends, not truly. But whatever I feel for you, for better or for worse, is only about you, not your father or his past with me. And all I'm asking now is that you do the same. I'm me, and whatever judgment you pass, I'm asking you do it based on who I am now, not this… persona you've heard about in your childhood because that guy never existed. And I'm sorry you had to go through that as a child, I'm sorry, even, for not being around back then, because I'm quite sure Howard wouldn't have sung my praises if I had been around to hear them," Tony chuckles a little at that, quietly, and Steve smiles softly, "Just give me a chance to be me around you, and we'll see how that goes."

Tony sighs deeply, and drains another glass.

"You're not half bad so far, Rogers," he says, and Steve smiles a bit more. The moonlight hits just right that he can see Tony's lips still wet from the drink, the goatee perfectly in place even that late at night, eyes shining dark and bright in a smile.

He's beautiful, Steve can't help but think.

Oh fuck, he thinks next.

 _Oh fuck_.

 **X**

"I need to talk to you," Steve says in an urgent tone the next morning, his hands twisting in front of him, and Bucky stares at him strangely.

"Me?" he asks, a bit surprised — they had, after all, found a kind of agreement in which they were trying to find their footing without all the baggage they carried around, but Steve looks serious and determined, and Bucky clearly doesn't want to refuse him.

"Is everything okay?" Sam asks, looking between them, and Steve takes a look at his friend and shakes his head.

"Maybe you could help too, can I talk to the two of you?"

Sam and Bucky trade a look, but get up, and follow Steve to his room — it's the one place where they can be sure no one will hear them, because they are big on privacy in the compound, at least in their own rooms.

"Tony and I talked last night. About the report you showed me, and a lot of other things and I—" he stops, takes a deep breath, and freezes, not knowing how to go on, because he's not even very sure of that himself, "Maybe I need Natasha here too," he says next, and Bucky looks at him strangely.

"You're starting to freak me out, Rogers."

"Nat's coming," Sam says, shaking his phone at them, and Steve nods, taking a deep breath and letting all the air out in a rush. When Natasha gets to his room a few minutes later, the two other men look actually concerned, and she frowns, entering carefully and closing the door behind her.

"What's going on?"

"I think I'm—" he pauses, not believing his words are actually going to come out of his mouth, "I think I've been in love with Tony this whole time."

Silence meets his statement and he looks up to see his three best friends staring at him in varying degrees of incredulity.

"You've been soul searching to find the real you, and what you found is that you're in love with Stark?" Bucky asks, disbelief clear in his every word, but Steve shakes his head.

"We talked last night about his father and all that it brought us the first time we met and… I just started thinking that… That first time we met on the Helicarrier," he looks at Natasha, and she nods, remembering it quite well, "All I wanted was for him to take notice of me. I've spent the first two decades of my life having people thinking I wasn't enough, and it never bothered me this much, and then this guy comes in, and he says I'm nothing special, and it bugged the _hell_ out of me, because how dare he? And every time we talked after that, every little thing we said to each other — I get that Tony had this whole past with Captain America, but it always bothered me _so much_ that I wasn't as close, or that I wasn't there, and he said, last night, that I was protecting Bucky when I didn't tell him about the Winter Soldier and his parents, but I _wasn't_ , I was thinking of him, of the hurt I could spare him. It killed me thinking that I would have to see him suffer, and it killed me that we couldn't find common ground in the Accords. It killed me that in every mission, every battle, he would always put himself at risk as he did, and that he wouldn't just obey, because he's not a soldier, and then last night I was looking at him, and I just thought he's so damn _beautiful_ , and you know the last time I thought that? When I was looking at Peggy, the day we met," he stops talking and shakes his head, half in despair at his own obliviousness.

It's so clear to him, now that he's thinking about it.

Natasha looks at him then, her eyes calculating, head tilted to the side.

"You know, it _would_ make a lot of sense. I wouldn't say _in love_ , but Stark did get a rise out of you more easily than anyone else — he still does. You two have always been volatile around each other, but when you put it in this light, you might as well have been pulling his pigtails."

"I don't think that's it, though," Sam says, and the other three turn to him, and he shrugs, "Why would it have taken you almost five years to figure this out, then? You're a bit slow on the feelings thing, but this much?"

Steve then looks at Bucky, and the other man nods his understanding.

"Because we are not from this time, Wilson. We adapt, but back then it wasn't… I don't think any of us would have ever considered entertaining the thought of another man like that. Ever. I get that it's okay right now, and clearly Steve does too, but it's possible that it didn't occur to him simply because Tony's a man," he shrugs as he says it, and Sam still doesn't look convinced.

"Tony, though? Don't get me wrong, but compared to Sharon, he's not really…"

"Careful around me? Down to earth, patient and a good team player? No, he's not," Steve says with an incredulous chuckle, and then Bucky is letting out a surprised burst of laughter, staring at Steve with mirth clear in his eyes.

"No, he's confident, and doesn't care about orders as long as he thinks he's right. Willing to go over his superiors' heads if he has to to get shit done. Also hot and dark haired. Fuck, Rogers, but you do have a type."

"Carter?" Natasha asks, her tone a bit amused, and Steve sits down, head in his hands.

Every time he thinks he has himself figured out, something comes and throws him off.

"They do have a lot in common," Bucky states carefully, "But, are you sure about this? I mean, you've been a little… lost. Lately."

"And may I point out that if the guy who spent the last seventy years in a state of an icicle or a killer amnesiac says you've been lost it's because you're in serious trouble?" Sam adds, but Steve takes a deep breath before speaking again.

"No, I'm not sure, it's why I asked you to come here. The thing is that I… This whole thing, the Avengers, my whole life after I came out of the ice, everything started out wrong. I was Captain America full time, I don't even know who Steve Rogers is anymore. I was so worried about treating everyone with equality, that it never occurred to me that I wasn't treating anyone as an equal — except for Tony. He…" Steve stops again, breathing in deeply, clearly trying to organize his thoughts in a coherent manner before speaking, "The one person that made me feel like a _person_ should feel, even if for all the wrong reasons, was Tony. To everyone else I could keep my cool keep on being Captain America, but for him, when he's around — all the stances in which I was actually focused on _myself_ have been around him. And maybe, yeah, maybe I did read this wrong, maybe it's been so long that I don't know what being in love with someone means anymore, but I do know that I didn't love Sharon like I should have, and I do know that the idea that I may find out I'm someone that Tony doesn't like kills me inside in a way that I didn't think could happen."

Sam looks downright bewildered by the whole declaration, and Natasha still looks a bit skeptic, but it's Bucky who's smiling at Steve, something shining in his eyes that Steve can't figure out but he hasn't seen it since before the war.

"That sounds… Romantic," Natasha says, her tone almost teasing, and then Bucky scoffs.

"You know, all this time you spent with him, all those museums dedicated to who he was, how he became a soldier, and not _one_ of you got it that this guy," he points at Steve then, "was an Arts student. He barely reached my chin, and even though he picked fights like nobody's business, he was supposedly the brains of our duo. Steve Rogers, my Stevie, is not a… how do you call it nowadays, a jock? A brainless jock, a wall of muscle who's good for throwing people and helicopters off buildings. He's kind, and he's brave, and he dreams of waiting to dance until he finds the right partner," Bucky stops talking for a moment, shaking his head with a smile still on his lips, "This is the first time I think I recognized you ever since I shipped off to Europe, punk."

"Jerk," Steve answers, something lifting off his shoulders like taken out by magic.

"Still, that's a bit of a leap, isn't it? Going from 'I want him to like me' to "I'm in love with him'. Also, Steve," Sam seems hesitant to keep going, but Steve just nods at him, waiting. If there's anyone in this whole group who'll know how to deal with this is Sam, who was an actual counselor before, "You shouldn't just dismiss who you are like this. I understand how appealing it may sound to just disregard whoever you think you were before as someone else, as something you're not, but you are that person _too_ , even if your reasons for behaving like that were wrong. It's okay to want to change, it's healthy, specially if you think you weren't happy like that before, but it doesn't invalidate the last five years of your life. They were your years, for good or for bad. And I'd like to think they weren't all bad."

When he's done, Steve can see that he's being gently reminded that two of the people in this room with him right now are friends with the person he had been for those past five years, or at least for a part of it.

Before he can reply, however, Natasha hums in a pensive manner, making the other three look at her.

"It does lend some truth to his theory about being in love with Tony, though," she starts slowly, voice calm and reasonable, "This whole thing started out of your desire to be able to be around Tony again, to have him forgive you, to have him accept you in the team, and in his life. Five years is a long time to go around being someone you're not, which is why I don't think all of it was an act, but you _are_ willing to throw all of that away for a chance to have Tony see you as someone new, someone he can like. Even your whole dislike for this Captain America persona only started when Tony admitted he never liked him. And your willingness to see that being that guy 24/7 is unhealthy only came by after Tony admitted he didn't know if he could forgive Steve Rogers," she pauses, looks at Sam with an eyebrow raised, "It all comes down to Tony, in the end."

Steve runs his hands over his face and falls onto his back on the bed, face still hidden. He hasn't felt this out of sorts over something that wasn't an international crises in _years_. Since Peggy caught that woman kissing him, really. It's the closest he can get as a frame of comparison.

"I'm a mess," he grumbles from behind his hands, and hears Sam chuckling in response.

"Everyone is. You're tired of being a super hero full time, here you go, your first lesson as a person in real life, everyone is a mess. Some are just better at dealing with it, or at hiding how freaked out they really are."

"Thanks. That's very motivational. I feel so much better now." His voice is dripping sarcasm, and Sam chuckles at his reply.

"It's better than being in hiding, or being threatened by whatever is going to come and freak us out next," Natasha states, voice practical if a tiny bit teasing, "It beats being on the run from the government," she keeps going.

"Yeah, yeah, I get that," he sighs, "Thank you. All of you. For your patience and… everything. I know I've been…"

"A pain in the ass, yeah, but what else is new?" Bucky says, and Steve takes his hands from his face to glare at him before sitting up again.

"That's why no one's ever nice to you."

" _Excuse you_ , everyone is nice to me," he answers haughtily, and Steve decides to ignore him altogether.

"Thanks. Just, for everything. Now and before, and… Thank you."

Sam and Natasha only nod at him, with small smiles on their faces, and he feels a bit more settled.

"There is one issue, though," Bucky starts a few moments later, and the other three look at him, "As far as we know, Tony is straight."

Sam scoffs at that.

"You're taking a big leap if you're assuming that Steve is going to _do_ anything about it even if he _is_ in love with Tony."

Steve has his head tilted to the side, and Natasha is watching him with a growing smirk on her lips.

"We can't be _certain_ that Tony is straight just because he was dating Miss Potts," Steve points out.

"Are you _serious_? It took being declared an enemy of the state before you got the guts to do anything about _Sharon,"_ Sam points out.

"He didn't really like Sharon, though," Natasha points out, and Steve can only shrug when Sam looks at him in disbelief.

He _is_ a mess. His whole life makes no sense, and he has no idea of who he is anymore — but he does know that when he loves something, he isn't the kind of guy to just let it go, so he'll try.

He owes himself that at the very least.

 **X**

Tony is the very first person to recognize that he was nowhere _near_ being a well-adjusted adult, but when faced with the sorry state Rogers was left in after everything they've been through, he started to feel even more like an asshole for holding his grudge against the man for that long.

It's just hard, letting it go: for the first time in his life, he has reason and justification for all the hatred he felt for that figure that had haunted his childhood and his parents' marriage — he could actually _hate_ Captain America, not because he's a fucking child inside, or because he just can't help but feel like _less_ when the man is around, but because Captain America had screwed him, Tony Stark, over, and then left him on his own to deal with the fall out. And not only that, but Tony managed to be the bigger man, and get all of Steve's friends back in the country, and back into the team. He had been the bigger man, taken the first step, and he _had reason_ to hate Steve Rogers and Captain America both.

It was good, and it was fun — until it wasn't.

Tony had never been about kicking people when they were down — it's part of the reason why he could never really see Justin Hammer as an _enemy_ , because the guy was just pathetic, and Rogers, in the first few months back into the country, was just downright pathetic.

The fact that Bucky started to look for Tony seemed to have opened up a tunnel of despair in the man, and no one really knew how to act around him — Natasha was worried, but giving him space; and Sam had been saying that Steve needed to process things on his own terms; and Bucky was worried, but unwilling to act on it, because he knew how much baggage the two of them shared between them, and he didn't want to add anything else to either of their burdens.

It's not like everything was just dandy among all of them, because it wasn't: Tony had to swallow his pride repeatedly, and apologize for things he didn't really think were wrong, but he knew he had to, so they could move on. He understood their point of view, and he hadn't been lying to Rogers when he said that he, too, would have picked Steve to follow instead of him, but he's still angry, and he's still hurt, and when he gets like that, he doesn't like being around the people who hurt him, so every time he worked something out with one of the others, Steve's responsibility in this whole mess seemed to grow. He couldn't be mad at Sam for helping his friend, so he got mad at Steve for making the guy go illegal. He couldn't blame Wanda for wishing to leave the compound and not be afraid of her powers, so he blamed Steve for not seeing how much of a child she still very much was, that she still lacked some common sense to see that Tony was, indeed, trying to protect her. He couldn't hold a grudge against Clint for leaving retirement after he had done the same thing, so he held a grudge against Captain America for not thinking of Clint's wife and children.

He couldn't hate Bucky for all the shit the Winter Soldier had pulled, so he hated Steve for not seeing anything clearly where Bucky was concerned.

It worked well for a while too — until he just couldn't bear to see Steve looking miserable, and lost, and pushing everyone away. Tony is a bit of a drama queen, and he really likes to think that he's the center of everyone's universe, but all the angst, and all the guilt, and all the sadness Rogers seemed to be going through couldn't be just _him_. He wasn't that important to Roger to warrant such behavior, so he decided to try and let it go before the man slipped into a depression none of them would be able to get him out of.

The day they talked, and Steve said that he wasn't really _that guy_ , Tony was hopeful. They could make it work, they could make the team work if they had some common ground, if he could bury the guy that his father had built in Tony's head, and for a while there, things seemed to be going okay. Rhodey showed Steve the dossier Carter had made on Howard, and they talked about it with no blood shed. Before that, even, Steve had lied to May Parker to help him and Peter out of a tight spot without even having to be asked. The guy seemed to be really getting himself back together, and Tony thought that was it, they were finally going to start moving forward with their lives — and then Steve got weird again.

Not like before — he wasn't sad, or looking depressed or anything, but just that morning, as Tony was entering the kitchen to get some coffee, still pulling a t-shirt over his head because his old one was dirty, Steve had started stammering and stuttering, and he had _vanished_ from the kitchen as if running from a ghost, and Tony didn't know what to make of it. It hadn't been the first time, and Steve seemed to have developed a propensity to blush his way through any meeting with Tony, and it's starting to get to Tony's nerves.

The third time it happens, in the kitchen, Tony narrows his eyes at Rogers' hasty retreat and turns his head slowly, staring at Bucky until the man deigns to put his mug of coffee down and look back at him.

"He's acting weird again," Tony states, and Bucky looks like he's containing a laugh, mirth clear in his eyes.

"Is he?" the man replies, raising his mug to his lips again, and now Tony is certain that this is not some secret Steve is hiding — Bucky clearly knows what it is. So must Sam, and Natasha probably.

"What is it?"

Bucky shakes his head, still smiling.

"I can't tell you, it's Steve's thing."

Tony is quiet once more, his eyes calculating.

"It got you talking to him again, so it's not bad," he starts, and Bucky inclines his head, conceding the point, "What, he convinced you I'm the Antichrist, and now you're on his side?"

"There are no sides in this team. We are all a single team, remember?" Bucky says, the smirk still there, and it's starting to piss Tony off.

"So what is it?"

"I can't tell you."

His words sound final, and Tony huffs, grabbing the whole pot from the coffeemaker and heading out with it, taking great pleasure out of the indignant protests coming from the former assassin in his kitchen.

"You know I'm going to find out sooner or later, this is your payment for not telling me now," he shouts, and heads to Natasha's room, still carrying the pot.

When he gets there, Nat is just coming out of her room, and she arches an eyebrow at him and his pot.

"What's going on, Stark?"

"I've taken the coffee hostage until someone tells me what's wrong with Rogers."

"What's wrong with Steve?" she asks, taking the coffee pot and his mug out of his hands in a swift strike.

He frowns, but can't really say he's surprised.

"He's acting weird. Weirder than before. Running from me, and everywhere I get in, he leaves."

"Like in a huff?" she asks, face blank and careful, and Tony shakes his head in denial.

"No, like he's… I don't know."

"Embarrassed?" she suggests, a smirk behind his coffee, and Tony doesn't like this one bit.

"You could say that… Come on, Natasha, what is it? What did I do?"

"You did nothing," she says, calm as ever, voice soft and even, but her eyes are sparkling in amusement, "Just… Let Steve work through some of his things at his own pace."

"This isn't bad, thought, right?" he asks, and some of his anxiety must show on his face, because Natasha stops smirking, and looks at him with a concerned look on her face, "Look, I don't want to be stepping on his toes here. If he has something to work through, that's fine, but this does seem to be related directly to me, and I don't want to mess this up. I can't…" he swallows, the wave of emotions taking him by surprise, "I can't go through this crap of dividing ourselves again, Nat, I just—" he lets out a shuddering breath, and suddenly Natasha isn't smirking or confused anymore, she looks so very _sorry_ , her whole face is a mask of it.

"Tony, this isn't it, I promise you," she starts, her hand carefully setting on his arm, after he takes his mug back, knowing he believes her when he actually takes it from her hand, "I know I let you down before, but you can trust me on this: it isn't anything bad. It's just Steve, apparently acting like the dork he truly is, and had managed to keep hidden from most of you so far."

"So this has nothing to do with all that…" he waves his hands in air a bit, the coffee in his mug sloshing around dangerously close to splash him on the face, "…mess," he settles for, and it actually gets a smile out of Natasha.

"It doesn't. Just give him time, and he'll come off it."

Tony keeps quiet for a while, trying his very best to think of an appropriate thing to say — everything going through his head is passive-aggressive, or downright aggressive, and this isn't what Natasha is trying to do, she isn't actively trying to hurt him: she may, actually, even be trying to help.

"Fine," he tells her, and turns his back, leaving the pot behind.

He'll give Rogers even more time if that's what he needs — it's not like they don't have it anyway.

 **X**

Natasha isn't sure where she went very wrong in her life — or maybe very _right_ — that she gets to worry about the love lives of the people around her in such a way that they matter.

It's not what she was used to, even when she was solely working for SHIELD, even after her past was behind her — or as behind her as it could ever be. But here she is, living in a compound with a dozen people she couldn't even imagine living together at any point, but it all works, in a strange way. It works.

It's strange, and insane, and a bit scary, sometimes, but this is their lives now, post-Accords, and pre-Whatever-Crap-Was-Coming-to-Get-Them-Next. It's having people around at all times of the day, and seeing them as equals, not just as coworkers. It's trusting that the people on this building are going to have her back, and that she, in turn, has their back too, even when they're wrong, if need be.

It's looking for Steve to give him tips about wooing his man before Tony ends up convinced that Steve is going to start a second war among them.

And if that isn't ridiculous, then she doesn't know what is.

With a sigh, she knocks on Steve's door, and he answers with a curious look, that borders on guilty. Behind him, sitting on one of his armchairs, is Bucky, and Natasha rolls her eyes at the plain glee he sees on the man's face — he must have really missed seeing Steve make a fool of himself all these years.

"So, Tony came to see me, and ask what's wrong with you," she starts, and Steve hides his face in his hands, mumbling something unintelligible, "Look, I'm not sure how blushing and running away worked in the 40's, but this isn't going to cut it right now."

She gives him a minute to answer, but he doesn't — not really. He merely shakes his head again, red to the blond roots of his hair.

"Look, Steve, I know this is a lot for you to handle, but you have to get a grip around him. Tony came looking for me because he thought you might be back to hating him again."

"I'm not—" he starts, face pale all of a sudden, and eyes wide, and Natasha holds up a hand, stopping his protest.

"I know that. _We_ know that. But as much therapy as Tony has been through, he can't read minds, and the last time you were avoiding him, things didn't go down so well. Can you blame him for thinking of the worst case scenario first?" She pauses, and Steve sighs deeply, "As creative as Tony is, I don't think even he would come up with the reality, you know. You have to give him something to work with that tells him you're not thinking of leaving the team."

Steve's eyes go impossibly wide, and before he can even think o an answer, Bucky lets out a laugh, as if he can't contain himself.

"God, you _suck_ at this!"

"You don't have to sound so happy about it, you know. I could really screw this up, ugh, how did I even get to this point?" Steve asks, looking close to tears, and Natasha sighs, wondering, once again, how is this her life.

"Look, Steve, you just have to calm down a bit. _You_ figured out you like Tony, but no one else has a clue. Actually, I think that unless you draped yourself across his bed, stark—" at this, Bucky chuckles, which earns him a glare from Natasha, "—naked, with a sign saying _fuck me,_ he wouldn't guess it. So just calm down a bit, he won't figure it out before you're ready, and even then, it might take him some convincing."

Steve takes a deep breath at that, and nearly jumps out of his skin when he hears a knock on the door.

"Come in," he calls, and Sam peeks inside the room with a suspicious look.

"I just saw Tony heading to his workshop muttering about Capsicle, so, what did you do now? Run from him? Screeched because he showed you an ankle?"

"You're not funny," Steve tells him, and Natasha and Bucky glance at each other and then look away quickly, before they burst into laughter and risk actually offending Steve.

"What did you do?" Sam asks again, his voice patient and calm, and Natasha has to think that they don't deserve him.

In a house full of crazy assassins, millionaires with daddy and self-worth issues, killer teenagers and former outlaws, they do not deserve Sam.

Or Rhodey.

They're the two focal points of sanity in a sea of crazy — maybe more Sam than Rhodey, the Colonel has spent way too long around Tony to be fully there, but still better than the rest of them.

"He just…" Steve blushes again, looking downright mortified, his voice defeated, "He came into the kitchen still pulling his t-shirt on, and I kind of—" he doesn't finish the sentence but gestures vaguely in a way that makes Sam raise an eyebrow — first at him, then at her and Bucky, getting only amused looks in response, "I left, and now he thinks I hate him again, or I'm plotting his assassination or something."

He sounds so defeated right then, so miserable, that Natasha just has to help him, even though she feels idiotic for even trying.

She has a very specific skill set that should be used to taken down aliens, terrorists and enemies of the Earth, not helping a grown man go after someone he likes.

"Steve, why don't you just try hitting on him?"

"Because he doesn't know how to do that," Bucky offers, and gets a glare in response. He merely shrugs, "It's the truth."

"It kind of is, you know," Steve admits, "Even with Sharon, I asked her out once, and I'm not sure she realized I was asking her out."

"How could that be?" Sam asks, sounding actually curious.

"I offered her my washing machine."

Silence meets his statement, and Steve's only response is to bury his face in his hands again.

"Look, Steve, you're very…" Sam starts, looking like every word pains him, "You're very… Aesthetically pleasing. You could use that to your advantage."

Steve stares at him in incredulity as Bucky laughs loudly on his other side, and Natasha has to resist the urge to bury _her_ head in her hands.

Or all these men in the backyard. One or the other would do.

"Aesthetically pleasing?" Steve retorts, and Sam huffs, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Fine. You're hot. Happy now? Did it cause you happiness to hear me say you're hot?"

"Kind of, yeah," Steve answers, a shit eating grin on his face, and Natasha gets up to leave. She can't take this, "Where are you going?" Steve then asks, making her sigh.

"Do you actually need help in this?" she asks him directly, and Steve looks reluctant to answer to that, making her sigh again, "Just calm down, Steve. That's all you need to do for now, you can't really try and win Tony if you blush and run every time he gets into a room, okay? I think if you manage to do that, you'll be on the right track, ok?"

He nods, looking miserable again, and she leaves.

It's like going through all that High School drama she never really experienced, and never really wanted to.

Maybe some High School level strategies is what they need, after all.

 **X**

It's not shaping up to be a good day, Tony thinks, as he's going through the halls of the compound, looking for Rogers and Natasha. It's not a good day at all.

First with Rogers being weird and running from him, and Natasha clearly knowing what's going on, and then with a freaking portal thing opening up in his workshop and dropping a note telling him Strange wanted to talk to _The Avengers_. Not even the name of a person, but the team as a whole — does this man even realize that talking to _The Avengers_ nowadays means gathering a dozen people, two of whom are missing, by the way?

He knocks on Rogers' door and sighs when he sees Sam and Bucky in there with him.

"We've got a problem," he starts, and Tony can practically _see_ patriotism and the American Way descend upon him, as Steve Rogers, the apparent dork, melts away, and Captain America comes to take his place.

"What happened?"

"Strange dropped a note — and when I say _dropped a note_ , I mean _literally_ , opened a portal into my damn workshop and _dropped it_ — saying he wants to talk to us about something."

"All of us?" Rogers asks with a small frown, and Tony nods.

"I know, it's like he thinks that's easy. So I thought, you, me and Nat? Whatever it is, we can pass it on to the others tonight."

"Okay," Rogers answers, already visibly a little calmer than he was before, "When does he want to meet?"

"Now, apparently," Tony answers with a shrug, and Rogers nods, turning to the other men in his room and nodding at them too, before following Tony out.

They have barely left Steve's rooms when they meet Natasha, who looks downright pissed.

"Friday just told me of a security breach, what's going on?"

"Strange," Tony answers, and the woman's face looks even angrier as she falls into pace with them.

"Out of all the people in the world to get magical powers, it has to be _that guy,_ " she mutters, and Tony scoffs a small laugh in agreement.

They head to one of the living rooms, just in time to see the portal opening and closing, and Tony is so pissed off he could eat Strange for breakfast right now.

"Look, I get that maybe in Hogwarts this kind of behavior would be okay, but not in this compound. You want to talk to us, you call, like a normal person — you _do not_ enter my workshop, or my living room, through those things, you understand?" he starts out with, and Strange raises an eyebrow at him, head tilted slightly to the side.

"Should I not have come straight away then, to tell you news of your other companion?"

"What other companion?" Steve asks — if because he wants to actually know or to stop Tony from physically hitting the other man is anyone's guess.

"The God of Thunder."

"You have news of Thor?" Natasha asks, straightening her eyes, and Strange nods briefly.

"Yesterday, he and his brother came by, looking for their father."

"When you say his brother…" Rogers starts, and Strange turns to look at him.

"I mean his adopted brother Loki, yes."

"And you didn't think to let us know that the mass killer was back on Earth, _with Thor_?" Tony demands, and Strange looks as if he's quite put upon for having to answer all these questions.

"I am letting you know now, am I not?"

Tony turns to look at Natasha, then.

"Can you believe this guy?" he asks, his voice incredulous, and Natasha only shakes her head minutely.

"What happened then?" Rogers inquires.

"I helped both of them find their father in exchange for Thor getting his brother out of Earth. They should be gone by now, but I thought you should be aware that trouble might be brewing on Asgard, and there is a chance that Thor might turn to you for help."

"Their father?" Tony repeats, "You mean to tell me Odin, the god Odin, was on Earth, and no one told us?"

"You are not privy to all information in the universe, Stark, as much as you'd like to think so," Strange replies, already pulling out that damn ring to leave. He sees the look on Natasha's face, however, and puts it away, inclining his head, "I'll take my leave now." And then he walks out.

"I hate that guy. If I ever decide to actually go into super villainy, he's the one I'm taking on as my nemesis," Tony states, and it startles a laugh out of Rogers.

He turns to look at the man, and is met by a pair of blue eyes filled with fondness — it's such a new experience to see that kind of reaction for _him_ coming from _Rogers_ that Tony decides to turn to Natasha.

"So, what do we make of this?"

"Be on high alert for the next few weeks in case he's right?"

Tony rubs his eyes in a tired manner — why did he decide this whole Avengers thing is a good idea, he'll never know.

"We should get everyone together and tell them. We have to inform SHIELD too," Rogers says, and Nat nods.

"I'll get on that, you two call for a meeting tonight?"

"Okay," Rogers agrees, and then Tony sees Natasha smirking the tiniest bit, there and gone so fast he might have imagined it, but he knows he didn't, because if Natasha didn't want him to see that smirk, she wouldn't _have_ smirked to begin with.

"Maybe we could make this a dinner thing — bonding exercise and such. It'd be good for team morale."

She and Rogers have a bit of a staring contest at that, and Tony frowns — whatever that is about, he wants no part in it.

"Alright. You two take care of that, I'm going to go and call the people who are off-base to let them know about… this," he finishes, and leaves.

Whatever is going on between Romanov and Rogers is none of his business.

None at all.

 **X**

"So basically what you're saying is that Strange stopped by, breaching all of our security measures, by the way, to tell us that Loki and Thor have been to Earth to look for their father, who was also _on_ Earth, and they were _working together_?" Sam asks after Tony, Steve and Natasha tell them all of the encounter with the magician.

Off to a side of their conference room, Fury looks downright murderous, and Hill has a frown on her face, arms crossed in front of her body. Around the table, the Avengers look on with several degrees of anxiety — the ones who hadn't actually _been_ in New York during the Incident looking far more at ease than the original members.

Clint, in particular, looks like he could kill something with his gaze alone, and Steve can hear Tony sighing quietly at his side, finding that the man has been watching Clint too.

"Look, the bottom line here is: we all knew shit was going to hit the fan, it was only a matter of time before it happened. Like Vision said once, our level of power invites challenge or some crap like that, and we are the most organized we have ever been. We have allies, we have SHIELD back, we even have that crazy ass clown with the magic tricks at our side, so," Tony said, annoyance clear on his every feature.

"At the same time, we have never been so prepared to face whatever threat this might mean," Steve picks up, unwilling to leave all of their teammates feeling that out of sorts about this, "We are together, and as Tony said, we have powerful allies. We can handle anything that comes our way, and we can do it together. We don't even know if this will come back here — there's no way for us to understand what this visit Thor made means for us, but we'll be prepared if it means anything. For now, all we can do is keep watching, keep on training and on being ready, and hope that it won't come to an actual battle."

"We'll keep our ears to the ground, if any trouble, of any kind, comes up, we'll know of it," Fury reassures them, and then gets up, leaving with a nod to the rest of them, Hill following with a nod of her own. And then it's just them, just the team, all together maybe for the first time since it all started.

Every single one of them looks scared.

"Look, there's no reason for any of us to go into blind panic here," Rhodey starts, and heads turn to stare at him, who keeps on talking with his voice even, tone calm — a man who is used to working through panic and turmoil because that is what's expected of him.

He _is_ Tony's best friend, after all.

"For all we know," he goes on, "they solved a family spat, and brought his dad back home after he got kicked out by their mom," there are some snorts around the room after that, and the Colonel continues, "We keep preparing, because it's what we do, this is _actually_ our job. But we don't get ahead of ourselves and freak out when we don't even know if there's a real threat. That's how mistakes are made."

That gets another sigh out of Tony, even though he can sense the anxiety levels in the room decrease a little.

"It's just…" Scott starts, and then shakes his head.

"Go on," Steve encourages him, and the man leans forward, leaning on his elbows, hands entwined in front of his body.

"We haven't faced anything like this before. What this could be, I mean. Sure, we partner up, and take down the odd mad scientist, and balls of animated ice, and weird looking creatures that come from the sewers and people who are just downright evil and have way too much access to weaponry and technology, but what this implies is on another level. The only ones with any experience with something like that are you guys," he motions to Steve, Tony, Natasha and Clint, "And two of you are missing still, and one may be part of the problem. It's a little… daunting."

"We are super heroes," Sam states, his voice calm and even, "Daunting is what we should expect."

"But even Ultron didn't seem quite this… big," Wanda volunteers, her voice a bit shaken, "We created that monster, we took it down, but it was our of our own creation," she continues, her gaze meeting Tony's for a brief moment before going on, "It stands to reason that we could beat it because we made it. But this… Gods coming to Earth, it just seems… bigger," she repeats, and Steve is at a lost for a few moments, because for all their fighting, and all their training, it never occurred to him that these people, that his new teammates, might have doubts and fears.

"You guys are under this idea that the Avengers were anything but six people who didn't even like each other very much coming together to fight big ass aliens commanded by Loki," Tony says, and every head snaps in his direction, mainly because so far he had been keeping quiet, "We didn't even meet until Clint had already been taken. We didn't even coordinate attacks until we were hitting the ground on New York with a giant army of huge armored crocodiles falling out of the sky and onto us. We learned on the spot, and training later sure helped, but that first time, we came together because we had to. We didn't have time to doubt, we didn't have the room to fail, so we didn't. It's no use freaking out, because we don't know what we'll face yet, but I do know that we are as prepared as we'll ever get, and we are going to do this, because we have to," he gets up then, both hands on the table, a charming smile on his lips, "So I say we all head to the kitchen, order some food, get something to drink and try to relax before doomsday is upon us again, and we'll all regret not having done that before."

That gets some chuckles out of the rest of them, and slowly they leave the room in twos and threes, until it's only Tony and Steve in the room.

Tony looks tired, and afraid, and scared, and it makes Steve's heart tighten in his chest.

"They are right, you know," Tony tells him, and Steve keeps quiet, waiting him out, "We have never been this prepared, and if Vision is right…" he trails off, and Steve frowns.

"Right about what?"

"About cause and effect," Tony shrugs, "If the more powerful we become the more powerful become our enemies, we _have_ never been this prepared, we have _never_ been this ready. What does that tell you about what we'll face?"

Steve gets up, stopping right beside Tony, who's still leaning against the table, and puts a hand on his shoulder until the other man turns to look at him — a world of guilt in his eyes.

"Tony, this is not our fault."

"Isn't it?" he asks, straightening up, but not dislodging the hand that squeezes his shoulder again in reassurance, "You were the world's first super hero, I was the one who brought that back. If cause and effect are to blame for all of this, then it is actually, truly, our fault. Its on both of us."

"Thor would still have fallen to Earth because his father banished him — that's on him. The Tesseract would still have been taken by Loki, because that was his choice alone. If we're placing blame on anyone, then maybe we should blame Odin for not knowing how to take care of his kids," Steve concludes, an angry turn to his lips, and it startles a laugh out of Tony.

"Screw up fathers do seem to maintain both the super villain and the super hero industries, don't they?"

Steve chuckles quietly, running his hand down Tony's arm before letting it go.

"It's not our fault, and we'll do our best, even if the threat is bigger than anything we've faced. It's our job," he sighs, taking a step back and staring at Tony until the man meets his eyes, "Weren't you the one telling me that we push forward, no matter what? So, we push forward."

Tony shakes his head at that, but there's a small smile on his lips.

"I knew being mature would come back to bite me in the ass at some point," he starts heading out and Steve follows, their steps slow and carefree for now, "Isn't it weird, though, all those people, all those abilities, and they still think we know more than they do just because we were there at the beginning, when truth is that we have no clue. Not a single clue more than they do."

"I think…" Steve starts, careful now, thinking his way through, "That is a good metaphor for adulthood. Everyone thinks everyone else knows what they're doing, when truth is that no one knows a thing."

Tony snorts and they fall into comfortable silence for a few moments.

"I am scared, though," Tony says after a few minutes, voice quiet but serious, "We have come so far, and… to lose all of this," he just shakes his head and Steve again puts a hand on his shoulder and they stop, Tony staring at him almost defiantly.

"Even if what comes next is bigger than we can actually face, we won't lose this. Not again. I swear," he tells the other man firmly, not a shadow of doubt in his voice.

Tony stares at him for a while, eyes searching for the lie, but Steve doesn't look away and doesn't let him go — he won't let them fall apart again, no matter what.

"We stand together," Tony says then, and Steve nods once, curtly.

"We stand together."

Tony nods at him and starts walking again, by his side.

He isn't sure what just happened, but it feels like a giant leap in the right direction for once.

 **X**

"So, basically, you have this wimp of a kid standing there, chalk in hand, pretty much having to climb on the professor's chair to reach the board—"

"— that's why no one invites you to anything, Rhodey, oh my god, it wasn't—"

"— _correcting_ the man's thesis," Rhodey keeps on going, talking over Tony, who gives up and hides his head in his hands, "And explaining to him, in no uncertain terms, why he was stupid. On his first day. So I took him under my wing, because, honestly, kid would have died without me there."

It's three hours and twenty-six pizzas after their meeting, and everyone is feeling better. There's beer going around, everyone is seated comfortably on armchairs and couches in the rec room, the TV is on playing something none of them are paying any attention to, and suddenly someone said 'old stories' and Rhodey was opening up about his friendship with Tony.

The only one not delighted by that was Tony.

"First of all, if a kid can correct it, then he didn't deserve to be called smart. I didn't call him _stupid_ , I just… correct his assumption that he was the smarter person in the room," Tony explains.

"'Cause that would be you, of course," Bucky says before taking a sip of his bottle, his tone dry, but Tony merely looks at him in mock disdain and inclines his head.

"Of course," he agrees before going on, "Second of all, I wasn't a _kid_ , I was fifteen years old. I knew my way around… stuff," he finishes with a slight wave of his hand.

"That's Peter," Scott reminds him, and everyone in the room laughs again, "You keep saying he's a kid, and hounding him about homework, you were his age."

Tony blinks at him for a second before shaking his head again.

"Be that as it may, I did _not_ need to step on a chair to reach the board—"

"—Kinda did, because you were still growing—" Rhodey interjects.

"—I could reach the board. You were the one who latched onto me, and never let go."

Rhodey nods a couple of times, as if measuring his best friend's argument for a few seconds.

"Kind of, yeah. Best move you ever made in your life."

Tony ends up chuckling quietly for a second, before nodding.

"One of the best, yeah."

"It must have been strange, though," Sam says from Tony's other side as the others move on to pick on Clint's time as a circus performer. Tony is between Steve and Sam on the couch, and he turns to the man with an eyebrow raised, "Being fifteen and all alone for the first time ever. I remember I was a mess my first semester," he finishes with a shrug, and Tony hums for a second.

"It was actually the opposite," he starts, voice quiet, Steve and Sam the only two listening, "I went to boarding school, but most of my classes were private ones, or with groups of kids who were so much older than me that it wasn't really… fun. College was when there were people all around, all the time. Back home, it was always just me and Jarvis, sometimes my mom, but at MIT… Rhodey was the first friend I made on my own, and we had a great time, but being around that many people all the time was overwhelming for a little while," he scoffs a laugh, taking a drink, "I think I enjoyed the lifestyle, though, seeing as we all live in what's basically a superhero co-ed, frat house."

"It does feel that way sometimes," Sam agrees easily, watching as Clint animatedly tells the team about how easy carnival games are to swindle, but Steve isn't paying attention, latching onto Tony's comment about always being alone.

"It was usually just me and Buck when we were growing up too," he volunteers the information, and Tony turns back to him, "I mean, he had a lot of girls following him around all the time, and he tried to include me in it, but they weren't there for me," he shrugs slightly, "So, it was mostly the two of us. When my mom passed away, he practically moved in with me," he huffs a small laugh, "I think he was more upset about going away and leaving me behind than actually going to war."

"Is it—" Tony starts then stops, shaking his head and taking a sip of his beer. Sam looks between the two of them, quiet and watchful, and Steve nods encouragingly, "Is it true you tried to falsify your information to go to war?" he asks, a veiled tone of disapproval in his voice, as if he can't quite believe someone would be that stupid, "I read your files, but it just seemed something a fanboy would add along the line, make the legend more… _legendy,"_ he finishes with a wave of his hands, and Steve chuckles instead of taking offense.

"I did, yeah, a bunch of times."

"Just to follow Barnes?" he asks, eyes intense staring right into Steve, and the man feels himself squirming a bit under it.

"No. Bucky being there was just the way things were going to go — he was healthy and able, and everyone else was going. It was… more than that."

"The will to fight for truth, freedom and the American way?" Tony mocks, but Steve shakes his head.

"Not just that — don't get me wrong, I wanted that too. But I didn't think I was doing enough to help. Staying behind, not fighting in the front lines, not doing everything I could to help protect the people who were suffering — it seemed like a waste. My life, why should it mean any more than all of those men's who went to war, while I stayed behind, protected, when I could be there, helping? I didn't have a family, I didn't have anyone else — my best friend was going to war, everyone we knew was fighting, and I was staying behind, as if I deserved it more than them, as if they had an obligation to fight my battles for me," he takes a deep breath, loosening up his posture, which had gone tense as he talked, "I was never good at letting other people fight in my place. Even when I knew I couldn't win, even when I knew I was going to end up with a black eye and bruises all over, I just couldn't _not_ do anything. So I kept trying until they took me in."

Tony stares at him for a minute, before shaking his head, a rueful smile on his lips.

"You're crazy."

"I prefer the term persistent."

Tony shakes his head again, but there is a smile still on his face, and Steve feels absolutely accomplished by that.

When he looks at Sam, the man is staring at him and shaking his head, amused. He shrugs slightly — it's true. He doesn't give up on things that are important to him.

Sam chooses that moment to go get some more pizza, and then it's just Tony and him an the couch, watching as their teammates eat and drink and talk — he can't remember them doing this since before Ultron. It's like with this, the threat of something larger than all of them in the horizon, they have finally settled into a team again, something close to family, to a unit, that he hasn't felt since… well, most likely since the Army, since the Commandos.

"Can I ask you something?" he turns towards Tony as he hears the man speak, and notices he has gone serious as he watches Steve, who nods, turning slightly on the couch to face him, "What was going on these past few days, with you and the running and stuff?"

Steve's eyes go wide, and he flounders for an answer, not knowing how to respond at all.

"I mean, if you don't want to tell me it's fine, it's just that it was weird. I asked Bucky and Nat and they told me it was your thing, and it was nothing bad, but…" he trails off, eyes on their friends again, avoiding Steve's gaze.

"I just—" he starts, stops, and takes a deep breath. Tony turns back to him, his eyes serious, looking as if he's preparing for a bad blow, and Steve just can't take it. He can't bear the idea of hurting this man again, "I was just figuring some stuff out. Like, this week, and I was a bit confused and—"

"Figured what out?"

"Some… stuff," he answers, his voice unsure, making Tony raise an eyebrow at him.

"What kind of stuff did you figure out that had you running from me?"

"You're beautiful," he blurts out, and he can almost sense Bucky staring at him from his spot at the table. He can almost _see_ his best friend put a hand on his face, and he's grateful that no one else had been paying them much attention.

Tony, meanwhile, is staring at him as if he's insane — which, clearly, should count for something, because he's not ruling that out right now.

Who in their right minds would tell someone they're beautiful out of the blue like that?

"You figured out I was beautiful so you ran away from me?"

Steve can't quite figure out what the tone in Tony's voice is, but he would go with hysterical, if there was a way to sound hysterical and calm all at once.

He lets out a deep breath and shakes his head.

"I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable or anything, I was just… I wasn't used to… And then, I just—" he stops babbling, glancing at Tony quickly, seeing his earlier expression of confusion give way to amusement, and he thinks it's better. Amused he can deal with, "Look, I'm sorry I made you think it was serious, when it was just me being…"

"An idiot," Bucky completes from his side, and Steve has never been more grateful for his presence than now, "Steve has been figuring some stuff out, and then got confused and weird, because it's a thing he used to do, and I think he's been missing his old ways, so."

"…Okay," Tony agrees, staring at Steve some more, his eyes flickering towards Bucky for a second before looking back, "And thanks. I think you're beautiful too, Rogers," he tells him with a chuckle, getting up to correct something Rhodey has been telling the others about their college days again, and Steve sinks into the couch, his hands covering his face, wishing the ground would open up and swallow him.

He can practically _feel_ Bucky's glee at his disgrace.

"You could _at least_ have some sympathy," he hisses, and the other man chuckles.

"Nah," he replies simply, making Steve think he needs better friends.

Watching his team now, though, he is quite sure he wouldn't trade this for anything in the world.

 **X**

A few days go by, and Steve is proud to say he hasn't made a fool of himself once. It's quite an accomplishment, and he's starting to relax thinking that maybe — just maybe — he can actually plan something that will bring him closer to Tony slowly, and they can work this out.

He's stopped stuttering and running away when Tony's around, and he's managed not to burst into flames when Sam and Bucky bother him about what they're calling his _man-crush_. Their training sessions are going well, and he even managed to get Peter to promise him not to bring his PSAs into conversation. It's been a productive couple of days, so of course, everything had to go to hell quite soon, or this wouldn't be his life.

"Hey, Rogers," Tony greets him, once again coming into the kitchen extremely early, which means he probably didn't sleep last night.

"Hey. Pulling an all nighter?" he asks, nodding at the grease on Tony's clothes.

"Oh," Tony starts, looking down and shaking his head, "Not quite. Just woke up too early and got to work, you know how it is."

Steve nods at that, and feels Tony watching him.

"Hey, are you busy right now?"

"Not really," he answers, instantly cautious by the shifty way Tony is looking around.

"Could you come to the workshop? I wanted to talk to you, and—" he trails off as Steve nods, and they head to the workshop, the sacred space where people only go in after Tony invites them in. It's his space, like each one of them have their own. Going there feels intimate, as if he's finally one of Tony's friends instead of just a colleague, and it makes him happy in a silly way — at least until they are inside, and Tony motions for him to take a seat on a stool, pulling another to sit down facing him.

"Look," Tony starts, a frown on his face, "I know you must be going through a tough time with— Well, to be honest I never thought you'd have this problem and, I don't know, in our team, I think I'm the only one who's gone through anything similar, so I thought I might come and talk to you and offer you, you know. Help. Or someone to complain to. Or something."

"Help with what?" Steve asks, feeling a bit confused.

"I know it must be tough. When you guys were young you were, you know, in the 30's and 40's and stuff, and that wasn't a good time for it, but I do think that if you talked to him, he wouldn't be a dick about it. So you should. Talk to him, I mean. My therapist is a great fan of the 'talk to people' front."

"Tony, what are you talking about?" He doesn't know where this conversation is going, and every time Tony opens his mouth, he gets more and more lost.

"Rogers— _Steve,_ " he starts softly, setting a hand on his shoulder and coming closer, "I know."

"Know what?" Steve asks, dread in his stomach, because if Tony _knows_ then… Well, then this conversation makes even less sense because Tony himself would be the one Steve should talk to and what?

"I know you have feeling for Barnes."

"Feelings for Barnes?" he asks, his head slowly going through the sentence in his head, "Feelings for Bucky? You think I have feeling for _Bucky_?" he asks again, and Tony lets go of his shoulder and sighs deeply, looking like he wants to be _anywhere_ but here at this moment.

"Look, I know something about this, when I first started hanging out with Rhodey I had the hugest crush on him, but look at us now! We're friends, and it's not weird. Of course we weren't raised in the Great Depression, but if you talked to him—"

"You had a crush on Rhodey? You had a crush on a _guy_?" he cuts Tony off.

"Well, yeah. I'm, you know, _open_. I wouldn't say I'm gay, because I'm mostly attracted to women, but, it happens."

"I don't have a crush on Bucky," he denies, and Tony sighs, a look of annoyance crossing his features.

"You don't have to come out to me or anything, but the clues are all there. I mean, you followed the guy into war, you said, that night, you two practically lived together before everything and, come on!" he says, a smile on his face, "Look at your history with the guy. I'm not going to get on your case for you to admit it if this is some kind of no homo kind of hang up you have, but—"

"I don't have a no homo hang up!" he protests, and Tony tilts his head to the side.

"Then why won't you admit it?"

"Because it's not Bucky I have a crush on!" he explains, letting out a huge sigh at the end.

"Oh," Tony pauses, analyzing him as if staring at a piece of schematics he can't quite get right, "Is it Sam, then? I would totally get it if it was, he's quite charming, and calm and—"

"It's you!" he yells in frustration, panic flooding him a second later, but he marches on, "It's you, that's why I was weird, that's why _this_ conversation is weird, and that's why I'm stupid, and I was going to make a _plan_ , but here we are, because you're infuriating and keeps poking at stuff until it gets you where you want, so here it is: it's _you_. I like _you_. Happy now?" he ends, standing up without even realizing when he got off the stool.

"I'm not Happy, Happy is my bodyguard," Tony says, his voice quiet and toneless, as if he's on automatic pilot.

"What?"

"Me?"

"Yeah."

"You have feelings for _me_?" he says it as if it's the most ludicrous thing he has ever heard, and Steve deflates, sitting back down.

"I do, yeah."

"But you _left_ , you— You didn't even _like_ me, with the Accords—" he keeps going, stunned, and Steve takes a deep breath.

"Tony, the only reason the Accords thing went to hell as fast as it did was because of Bucky."

"Exactly. Because he's the most important thing to you."

"No, because he's my friend. My best friend," he attempts a small chuckle, "Uhm, bros before hoes?"

"I think I should take offense at that," Tony replies, staring at him as if seeing him for the first time ever, "Are you— sure?" he asks, and Steve nods, not knowing what else to say.

"I don't want to make you uncomfortable or anything. I mean, I know it came out of the blue, and it took me a very long while to understand it all, but," he shrugs as he stops talking, and waits.

Tony keeps quiet, the longest Steve has ever seen him quiet.

"Do you… want me to go? Leave you alone?"

Tony shakes his head.

"No, I just. I'm processing."

"Okay."

"You like me."

Steve nods, and waits again.

Finally, after a while, Tony smiles, a strange smile, but a smile all the same.

"This is insane, I—" and then he stops, because all of the alarms in the compound starts sounding at once and they have to run and find out what's going on.

So, this is Steve's life.

 **X**

The good news is that Thor and Bruce are alive.

The bad one is that so is Loki.

Steve stares at Tony, and sees he is running his hands over his face, as if that will make the whole scene in front of him disappear.

There's a pod parked at their backyard.

Two gods and the Hulk right in front of them, and they are clearly at a loss.

"Hey, big guy," Tony ends up saying, and Steve follows him as they walk forward — Tony has an honest smile on his face when he sees the Hulk, and the green giant actually smiles back.

"Tony," he starts, "Hulk likes Tony."

"That's because you have good taste," Tony completes, before turning to Thor and Loki, and crossing his arms, "Not that I'm not happy to see you, but _why_ are you here?"

"Stark, Captain," Thor greets, his face — missing an eye — is grave, "We need to talk."

 **X**

It's some time before they actually get to talk, though — first because there's a brief argument on whether or not Loki should be arrested, and then another debate on whether or not Thor is under a spell when he reassures them that his brother is now on their side.

Steve, Tony and Natasha take the lead in the situation, and ask Sam to keep the others from entering or interfering until they know what's going on. In the meantime, Bruce has turned into himself again, being greeted with a hug from Tony, a slap on the back from Steve and an awkward smile, almost-hug-but-now-it's-too-late from Natasha.

They settle in a meeting room, one of the smaller ones, and Thor seems at a loss on how to start.

"Strange came by a couple of weeks ago, letting us know you went by his place," Tony starts, staring more at Loki than the other two, "We thought you might come to us, or you might need help, but we did _not_ expect _him_ to be with you."

"Asgard is gone," Thor states then, staring from Tony to Steve to Natasha, his eyes a bit desperate as he talks, "Our sister, she destroyed it. It had to be done, as the prophecy foretold, and we let it happen so we could save our people. But Asgard is gone. Our father is gone. And we have much, much bigger problems right now than Loki."

"You have a sister?" Natasha interjects, and Thor takes a deep breath, telling his tale — a crazy sister bent on destroying everything, his land destroyed, Asgard gone, a gigantic ship just in orbit above the planet, which, by the way, is being manned by a pile of rocks until they get back. A planet with the Hulk as their gladiator, and a Valkyrie as a part of their team. All of that, and an alliance with Loki.

"What do you want us to do, Thor? What do you need from us?" Steve ends up asking, once the tale is told, and both Natasha and Tony look ready to either strangle the two Asgardians or make them go away with their crazy problems.

"Before setting in motion the events that culminated with the end of Asgard, I took… something from father's vault," Loki starts, producing a glowing cube from the folds of his armor, and everyone in the room hissed at him. He put it away a second later, tilting his head to the side, "Now, at my attempt to conquer Earth, _this_ is what I promised Thanos. He gave me the scepter with a stone, which I now understand resides in one of your allies, and I would have to get this to him instead. Combined with what we know of Strange, this is two of the Infinity Stones on Earth. Three, if we count the Tesseract. One of them is, hopefully, safe, where our father sent it after some trouble it caused Asgard, but Thanos is coming. And if you think I was a villain, you are _really_ going to need to reevaluate your ideas, because this is evil on a scale you have never met before. You need us, just as much as you need us."

"And what makes you think we'd ever trust a word you say?" Natasha questions him, angrily.

"I promised Thanos the Tesseract, and I didn't deliver. He has as much of a desire to end me as he does in possessing all six of these," he tells her with a small smirk, "And if there's one thing you can count on, is my will to protect myself first," he pauses, looks out of the corner of his eyes at Thor and sighs, almost fastidiously, "And also the people of Asgard. And this big oaf, who would be dead five times over without me."

Natasha keeps asking questions, and eventually, Fury is called in to deal with the diplomatic situation they have found themselves in — it's a long, _long_ couple of hours, and Steve can't say he sees an end to it any time soon.

When he finally heads to his room, he takes a shower — tense and anxious and afraid, feeling energy burning inside of him, but the bad kind. He feels as if he should already be on the field, punching aliens, and not here, cozy and comfortable, ready to sleep. As he's debating going to the gym, there's a knock in his door, and he's surprised to see Tony standing there, looking much as Steve feels: as if his skin can't contain everything he's feeling.

"So," Tony starts, getting in and closing the door behind him, taking a seat on an armchair near the door, "this is not how I expected this day to go."

"At least we know what we're facing now. We'll find a way to be ready when we need it," Steve tells him, but he sounds unconvinced even as he says it, and Tony scoffs, looking down as he leans forward, his elbows resting on his knees.

"About what we were talking before doomsday was announced…" Tony starts, and Steve takes a seat on his bed, shaking his head slightly.

"We can… Leave that up for after we deal with this."

"Is that what you really want to do?" Tony asks, raising his head and staring into Steve's eyes, and Steve can't help himself.

"No. What I want to do is ask you for a chance to show you I could be good for you. That we could be good together. That I'm not joking, or confused, or all the things the others might think I am, because I don't know much about myself, but I know _this_ : I want you to feel about me as I feel about you, but that's not a very reasonable request, is it?"

"I don't know, you make a compelling case," Tony answers, which is _not_ what Steve was expecting.

Some confusion must have shown on his face, because Tony chuckles quietly before speaking.

"You haven't been the only one thinking and soul-searching. There was always _something_ here, Steve, and not only on your part, but I never really gave it any thought to grow, because, well… Because of Pepper, mostly. But she's not coming back, she can't," Tony states, starting into Steve's eyes as he speaks, as if willing him to see that this is the _truth_ , nothing more, nothing less, "I am who I am, and Pepper would never make her peace with it. He could never really live with someone who's always in danger, and I don't think I even want to get her into this, I mean, can you imagine, having to explain to someone who isn't _us_ what we just went through in that meeting?" he laughs, a tinge of bitterness in it, but not much, "But we know this. And I—" he stops, eyes intense and bright, and never fully calm, "You would understand that. You would get it, because you're here. So no, I don't want to leave it all for later, because, well, how sure are we that there's going to _be_ a later?"

"Tony, don't—"

"Are you telling me you wouldn't regret doing nothing if—"

But he doesn't get to finish that sentence, because Steve gets off the bed, and pulls Tony up in a single motion, lips pressed firmly against the other man's, in an impulse to not even _hear_ the end of that thought.

He couldn't bear it.

Not again.

Tony takes a step back after a moment, but his hands rest on Steve's shoulders, a smile is playing on his lips.

"A+ for enthusiasm, but I think we can do better than that," he says, coming closer again, giving Steve time to pull away if he wants to, but he doesn't — he doesn't think he ever will need to pull away from this.

Tony's lips are careful, his kiss is tentative, and nothing like Steve is expecting — this isn't rash, blazing Tony Stark, all loud words, and mocking laughs, this is Tony, the Tony who forgets to eat because he loves his work, who puts up with his weird robots because he built them to be just as quirky and weird as he is. Tony who forgave the man who killed his parents, and took every single one of them in when Steve never thought he would be able to be with his friends in peace again.

This is Tony, trusting him to not fuck this up, and he won't, he thinks, as he pulls Tony closer, deepening their kiss, still careful, still tentative, because this is new, and dangerous, and it has the potential of destroying them or being the best thing that could ever happen to him in his lifetime.

This is them, giving a chance, and believing the other won't let them fall down.

And when a few weeks later they are in the middle of New York, warships upon them, and a Titan in their midst, Steve will reach out to touch this man's armor, and even through their cowls and their helmets, when one of them whispers _We stand together_ , the other answers in kind, and for the first time in their lives, it feels like that answer is enough.

Together.

Or not at all.

89


End file.
